Posted in Whathaveyou on December 5th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Two nights each in Berlin and Leipzig, on successive nights no less. This is a recipe for ‘everybody’s friends’ when it’s over, and as that’s pretty on-brand for Exile on Mainstream — founder/honcho Andreas Kohl, who knows more than everyone but, like, isn’t a dick about it, keeps the circle pretty tight — but with reunions from End of Level Boss and Ostinato, the ever-mobile Darsombra making an overseas voyage to appear, The Moth who released one of this year’s best records, Conny Ochs and Bulbul, A Whisper in the Noise and Fireflies and Gaffa Ghandi, you get a whole bunch of different styles that somehow fit under a vague descriptor like ‘prog’ just because everyone involved is super-intentional about what they’re doing.
That applies to the label as well. Congrats and much respect to Andreas on 25 years of his label and the badass celebration he’s lined up for it. Still more names TBA, as it happens.
Info follows as posted on socials. Well, not exactly as posted. It was an Instagram textblock thing and I broke it up into paragraphs to make it easy to read. Me back in 2014 would probably laugh at me in 2023 doing that. “Short paragraphs. Who ever heard of that shit?”
And so on:
25 Years Exile On Mainstream
8/9 May 2024 – Berlin, Neue Zukunft
10/11 May 2024 – Leipzig, UT Connewitz
25 years! A quarter century of Exile On Mainstream. So, let’s celebrate. In a big way. On the 8th and 9th of May, we’ll meet in Berlin at the Neue Zukunft, and on the 10th and 11th of May in Leipzig, the city where it all began for us.
Both the Neue Zukunft and the UT Connewitz are inseparably connected to the history of Exile On Mainstream, supporting us far beyond the ordinary.
As it has become a tradition by now, and because we are hopeless romantics, we have three special reunions for the festival: Ostinato, A Whisper In The Noise, and End Of Level Boss will reunite for one-time only performances bringing back memories of the early days of EOM and connecting to current sounds and tunes on the label.
But that’s not all: get ready for some collaborations between the invited bands, which are as much a label tradition.
Hamburg, Germany’s The Moth exist in a world without genre, and their fourth album, Frost — also their first release for the likemided Exile on Mainstream — argues that maybe you should to. The three-piece of guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash and drummer Christian “Curry” Korr debuted a decade ago with 2013’s They Fall, answered back in 2015 with And Then Rise (review here), and made a declarative statement of persona on 2017’s Hysteria (review here), each record marked by incremental growth in an increasingly distinct stylistic context. Frost may arrive six years after the third long-player and through a new label, but as The Moth step forward again with this 10-song/44-minute collection, the many strengths of their approach are on ready display, whether it’s the intensity of chug in “Me, Myself and Enemy,” the sad hookiness of “Hundreds” or the thud and crush that caps with “Silent.”
One is tempted, perpetually, to think of The Moth as ‘experimental,’ but the truth is more complex. They’re not banging on steel girders or inventing instruments. They’re not looping effects until the cosmos seems to melt. Guitar, bass, drums, and the shared vocals of Ash and Mohrdiek are all they need to make Frost unpredictable front to back. They’re like the best present that noise rock never knew it got. Expansive and rolling in the Melvinsian tradition before the blowout on the title-track, loosely playing toward, well, Cathedral on “Cathedral” (could also say Type O Negative there), and set forth with punk-born fervor in the salvo “My, Myself and Enemy,” “Birmingham,” “Battlefield” and “Bruised” just before, the two instances of alliteration likely coincidental, but an example just the same of the identity and character in their material. A band not only saying they’re doing their own thing, but actually living up to that standard. And fostering an emotional expression as well.
“Bruised” seems especially well placed since, by the time one gets there it’s a potentially apt descriptor. Of the first four songs, only “Birmingham” is over three minutes long, and so where a psychedelic band might try to draw the audience in with some hypnotic, repetitive meditation, The Moth head out at a relative sprint and put their most driving material up front. That’s not a universal, blanket truth, by the way — because one must remember, The Moth are multifaceted, and a given track might do more than one thing — but applicable as a generalization. Certainly the penultimate “Dust,” which was also the lead single from Frost, has a suitably brash shove in addition to one of the record’s most satisfying nods, and “In the City” just before is tense enough to make your stomach hurt if you let it, with its weirdo effects in the second half lead over the double-time hi-hat and jet-engine rhythm layers of guitar and bass. But there is a definite transition as “Cathedral” picks up from “Bruised,” and “Hundreds” leans into its grunge-ish chorus melody with Ash and Mohrdiek together on vocals to end side A with a due sense of landing.
And it’s not the last one as The Moth move into side B and the last four, mostly longer, songs on the album. The rumble at the start of “Frost” boasts aww-yuck-face tone in only the most righteous fashion, and the sludgy crash and lumber that ensues is a redirect from “Hundreds,” which also ends thudding but in kind of a ’80s-thrash-tape manner. The title-track is the longest song at 6:52, and grows more consuming as it works toward its eventual fade, with Mohrdiek and Ash swapping back and forth in the vocal arrangement when not both shouting. With “In the City” after, they assure that the strides and vibe established on side A aren’t lost — that energy that comes through as “Me, Myself and Enemy” opens, I mean — and while one would hardly call the tremolo picking of “Dust” soothing, there is an overarching flow as it gives over to the avant raw riffing and toms of “Silent,” which brings back that forward-in-the-mix guitar-as-keyboard (unless it’s just a keyboard) sound from “In the City” as if continuing a theme across the final three tracks, pulling them together as a band might when considering the whole-LP impression of a work as well as the songs that make it.
Maybe The Moth sit and planned all this out before they hit the studio, or maybe the whole thing is magic. It matters only academically. What’s more relevant in terms of the listening experience is that Frost was tracked live, in a day. It is a band-showed-up-and-played record, and part of its sonic appeal comes from that. I used the word ‘raw’ above to describe the tones and I’ll stand by it, but it’s worth highlighting that while much of Frost can indeed be barebones from a production standpoint, the material neither sounds opaque nor difficult to engage. Even as they cap “Silent,” they do so on a march and a drone rather than some grandiose ending that would be out of place. If that’s a conscious choice on their part or just what felt right, the end result is the same. The Moth continue their progressive trajectory in these songs and meet the span of years it’s been since their last offering with head-on force of craft and delivery.
The Moth – Track-by-Track Through Frost:
ME, MYSELF & ENEMY
Sometimes the enemy can be yourself. That holds true for the emotional and psychological side as well as the physical side when something in your body turns against you and threatens your health and life.
BIRMINGHAM
The song is about people who want to change themselves or something in their lives and, despite being very motivated, have to realize how difficult it sometimes is to stop feeding the demons within them.
BATTLEFIELD
This is about being let down and emotionally injured by a person that you felt closest to. And about not being able to show or talk about the injury. So you smile though inside you are full of grief and not able to share it with anyone (yet). This denying of your feelings is (maybe literally) like killing parts of yourself over and over again.
BRUISED
This is about preparing for a fight and not being afraid of it, though the enemy may be strong. Because some fights are just necessary. Catching a few hits or getting bruised doesn’t scare you, because you know that you’ll get through this and though you may be smaller, you’re stronger.
CATHEDRAL
Some periods in life we feel like the present and the future are especially uncertain. It’s like walking through a fog and we just have to have faith in ourself, each other and that the good in humanity will win over the bad. In those times we should turn towards the other or the others, show that we feel the same, take each other’s hands (sometimes metaphorically speaking) and get through this together.
HUNDREDS
This is about past relationships and breakups. If they have truely loved, ex-partners may somehow stay connected on some other level even though they were not meant to be together in this life.
FROST
Sometimes what you most wish for and have fought for so long, just doesn’t happen or something puts a definite end to that vision you had: it will never become reality. So where is that hope that you fostered for so long, so suddenly supposed to go? Having to give up hope on something that was extremely important to you is a huge loss. So going through the grief that this brings feels like walking through a sea of ice, through the frost. And if nobody is sharing the grief with you, you have to confront this pain and emptiness on your own. Until the end of the frost.
IN THE CITY
It’s about people that are alive and have a lust for life and are not afraid to show it. They have dressed up, look sharp and walk the streets at night to go to a concert or a party and just enjoy themselves. They are being watched by others, half fascinated, half uncomprehending. The others are more ordinary people, who like to keep it „normal“, people with dead eyes. In this particular case we were thinking about four women from the Birmingham area who have supported us since we first came to the UK and definitely made the nights more colourful: Emma, Emily, Jess and Vic. Emma and Emily are also singing alongside Cécile on the chorus of this track!
DUST
Two years ago I (Cécile) had breast cancer. During that time I often listened to Anita Moorjani who once had cancer herself and a near death experience. She is just so encouraging. She says cancer patients should not accept the word „remission“ (fear-based) but should reinterpret this word as a shortform for „remember your mission“ (love-based). Our purpose is, she says, to remember what we came here for, what our mission is. And our first mission is, to truly be ourselves.
SILENT
The song is about the certainty or hope that someone is there for you and looks after you in tough times and will give you a hand.
German doom/sludge metal trio THE MOTH prepares to release their monstrous fourth album, Frost, through Exile On Mainstream this Friday.
THE MOTH takes their approach to new heights with their fourth album, Frost. Catchy lines get stuck in the listener’s heart and mind like a dislodged meat hook, explaining why the band calls their style doom-sludge pop – “Kim Wilde-meets-Bolt Thrower” – or like a review for the 2017 album Hysteria put it: “pop music played with a bulldozer.” Lyrically, however, THE MOTH shows a new openness and vulnerability under the shell of raw power that the songs initially present. Experiencing and living through strokes of fate runs through the record as a recurring theme – all under a rough shell of distinctive and deliberately raw sound. Bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash, guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, and drummer Curry Korr perform the dichotomy with a high recognition value. Boring riff hum and mantric stoner-esque repetition are not their thing.
Frost was recorded live in only 24 hours, the album recorded and mixed by José Lorenzo at Bombrec Recording, and then mastered by Timo Höcke at Die Wellenschmiede, and completed with artwork by Sarah Breen and layout by Cécile Ash. Emma Billingham and Emily Yardley provide additional vocals on “In The City.”
Frost will be released on September 22nd digitally and on 140-gram pure virgin Black Vinyl including a bundled CD. Find physical preorders at the Exile On Mainstream webshop HERE and digital at Bandcamp HERE.
THE MOTH has confirmed a string of release dates including shows with Thronehammer and labelmates Treedeon with more to be posted shortly.
THE MOTH Record Release Shows: 9/22/2023 Störtebecker – Hamburg, DE w/ Treedeon 10/03/2023 Alte Meierei – Kiel, DE w/ Thronehammer 10/04/2023 Fundbureau – Hamburg, DE w/ Thronehammer 10/05/2023 MTC – Cologne, DE w/ Thronehammer 10/06/2023 Immerhin – Wuerzburg, DE 10/07/2023 Keep It Low Festival – Munich, DE 11/17/2023 Thav – Hildesheim, DE w/ with Shakhtyor 11/18/2023 Die Trompete – Bochum, DE w/ Treedeon
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 21st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
New The Moth track is a banger. The PR wire info below has all the details you could want about the Hamburg-based trio’s upcoming fourth album and first for Exile on Mainstream, titled Frost, and I’d encourage you to by all means dig in and learn a bit of the background as you listen to/watch the video for “Dust.” Apocalyptic and thus almost woefully catchy, it’s a first taste of Frost, and its tones don’t strike as being particularly cold in its rolling groove derived (mathematically speaking, of course) from ’90s noise and given a melodic foundation in its verse that the repeated lyrics make that much more memorable.
This song was recorded live in a day — apparently that also applies to the entire album — and so if it feels raw, good. That’s what they’re going for. But they’re not just raw, or just any one thing. They really are the perfect Exile on Mainstream band, in that they’re able to do six things at once and be confoundingly complex while still coming across barebones and utterly cohesive. “Dust” deals lyrically with bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash‘s cancer experience, as she recounts below:
THE MOTH: German Doom Metal Trio Announces Details Of Fourth LP, Frost, Confirmed For September Release Via Exile On Mainstream; “Dust” Video + Preorders Posted
Exile On Mainstream presents Frost, the colossal fourth LP from German doom metal trio THE MOTH, confirming the album for September 22nd release alongside preorders and other details. With the news comes the record’s first single, a video for the song “Dust.”
After three albums on the fantastic This Charming Man label, THE MOTH now presents their label debut on Exile On Mainstream with Frost. Having honed their no-nonsense approach to sludge/doom metal on numerous tours and gigs, the band’s songs are virtually void of frills, instead opting to turn out hammer heavy drums and riff-heavy rock as brutal as it is bewitching. Since their acclaimed debut They Fall in 2013, the Hamburg trio has regularly delivered tracks with a catchiness that is surprising for the genre. Kim Wilde-meets-Bolt Thrower, as they call it themselves, or like a review for the 2017 album Hysteria put it: “pop music played with a bulldozer.”
THE MOTH now takes this approach to new heights with their fourth album, Frost. Catchy lines get stuck in the listener’s heart and mind like a dislodged meat hook, explaining why the band calls their style “doom-sludge pop.” Lyrically, however, THE MOTH shows a new openness and vulnerability under the shell of raw power that the songs initially present. Experiencing and living through strokes of fate runs through the record as a recurring theme – all under a rough shell of distinctive and deliberately raw sound. Bassist/vocalist Cécile Ash, guitarist/vocalist Freden Mohrdiek, and drummer Curry Korr perform the dichotomy with a high recognition value. Boring riff hum and mantric stoner-esque repetition are not their thing. Anyone who experiences THE MOTH live will automatically find themselves in front of the stage with a biting head nod, a thirst for beer, and a fist clenched at hip height.
Frost was recorded live in only 24 hours, recorded and mixed by José Lorenzo at Bombrec Recording, and then mastered by Timo Höcke, at Die Wellenschmiede, and completed with artwork by Sarah Breen and layout by Cécile Ash. Emma Billingham and Emily Yardley provide additional vocals on “In The City.”
The first single from Frost, “Dust,” is delivered through a video by Niklas Krohn of Cruel Visions. Cécile Ash reveals the touching story behind the single, writing, “Two years ago, I had breast cancer. During that time, I discovered the writer Anita Moorjani and her own approach to cancer. After a near-death experience her tumor started regressing and she came out with a super positive, encouraging, and empowering attitude. One of the essences of her attitude is rewriting the meaning of the word remission, used to describe the 5-10 years phase after a treatment when signs and symptoms of cancer seem to be fading or completely going away – before doctors would use the word cure. Moorjani reinterprets and sees it as an abbreviation for ‘Remember your Mission’ postulating a pledge for asking yourself: ‘What is my mission, what am I here for?’ First and foremost, she says it’s about just being yourself. ‘Dust’ is about death holding the sword of Damocles of cancer recurrence over me. It says dagger instead of sword in the song simply because it did fit better with the music. It’s about remembering the mission of being yourself, which seems to be a strong force against a possible conquest and for a serious bye-bye to the ongoing threat.”
Check out THE MOTH’s video for “Dust” now at THIS LOCATION.
Watch for additional videos and previews of the album to post shortly.
Frost Track Listing: 1. Me, Myself & Enemy 2. Birmingham 3. Battlefield 4. Bruised 5. Cathedral 6. Hundreds 7. Frost 8. In The City 9. Dust 10. Silent
THE MOTH has already confirmed a string of release dates including shows with Thronehammer and labelmates Treedeon with more to be posted shortly.
THE MOTH Record Release Shows: 9/22/2023 Störtebecker – Hamburg, DE w/ Treedeon 10/03/2023 Alte Meierei – Kiel, DE w/ Thronehammer 10/04/2023 Fundbureau – Hamburg, DE w/ Thronehammer 10/05/2023 MTC – Cologne, DE w/ Thronehammer 10/06/2023 Immerhin – Wuerzburg, DE 10/07/2023 Keep It Low Festival – Munich, DE 11/17/2023 Thav – Hildesheim, DE w/ with Shakhtyor 11/18/2023 Die Trompete – Bochum, DE w/ Treedeon
Founded in 2012, the feedback on THE MOTH’s first album They Fall was already quite enthusiastic. Right from the start, the band presented themselves as an international band that drew fans all over the world, from Tokyo to Vancouver. Between festival appearances at the Desertfests in London and Berlin, Stoned From The Underground, the Svart Festival Oslo, the Doom Over Vienna, and the Riff Mass Brighton, two more albums were released in 2015 with And Then Rise and 2017 Hysteria. On accompanying tours and shows throughout Europe and the UK with, among others, Treedeon, Conan, Eyehategod, Crowbar, Torche, and Red Fang, THE MOTH left enthusiastic fans behind.
Posted in Whathaveyou on May 15th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Insert forehead slap here. I mean, of course Hamburg’s The Moth would end up on Exile on Mainstream. Their outsider sludge rock is a perfect fit for the long-established imprint, whose general taste and will to bend the rules of genre are defining aspects. It’s like a dodecahedron peg in a dodecahedron hole. Bordering on the obvious.
Been a minute, but The Moth‘s last album, Hysteria (review here), was released through This Charming Man Records in 2017. Their next one is coming in September, so maybe we’ll get more info in the next month or so, but for now the news is good and a new record from them is something to look forward to. They’ll be out on the road for it in Germany with Thronehammer in Sept./Oct., also making a stop to rile up Keep it Low in Munich.
Right on:
THE MOTH: German Doom/Sludge Metal Trio Signs To Exile On Mainstream; LP Due This Fall
Exile On Mainstream welcomes fellow Germans THE MOTH and their groove-heavy brew of doom/sludge metal to the label for their impending LP.
Label owner Andreas Kohl states, “Just as a good friend recently put it: ‘This band, with this lineup and this sound – it was just a question of time until they land at your shores. They just belong to Exile On Mainstream.” The friend, Germany’s renowned Metal radio icon Jakob Kranz, envisioned what we kinda felt but didn’t know. So did we finally achieve becoming a label that defines through a certain sound? Have we become so predictable? Not at all. I mean come on, THE MOTH might be a power trio with their sound deeply rooted in sludge, a woman on bass creating the most thundering base a lover of the heavy could wish for, and they might share a certain approach to music and loving what they do with the likes of Treedeon and Might, but it’s not the sound. The Hamburg-based act got here based on the binding element in our universe: friendship.
“I have said it before: we either are friends, or we become it by working together. So, welcome to the tribe, THE MOTH! With three albums under their belt, all released by the fantastic brethren at This Charming Man, the members are no newbies and have honed their no-nonsense approach to sludge/metal/doom on numerous tours and gigs. Their songs are virtually void of frills, instead opting to turn out hammer heavy drums and riff ready rock ’n’ roll. As brutal as it is bewitching. With a fourth album in the making, we are thrilled to welcome THE MOTH.”
The new album by THE MOTH is under construction now. Expect a release in September 2023, with more details to post over the Summer.
Before the new album is even finished, THE MOTH has already confirmed a string of release dates including shows with Thronehammer and labelmates Treedeon with more to be posted shortly.
THE MOTH RECORD RELEASE TOUR 2023 22/09/23 D Hamburg, Störtebecker (w/ Treedeon) 03/10/23 D Kiel, Alte Meierei (w/ Thronehammer) 04/10/23 D Hamburg, Fundbureau (w/ Thronehammer) 05/10/23 D Cologne, MTC (w/ Thronehammer) 06/10/23 D Wuerzburg, Immerhin 07/10/23 D Munich, Keep it Low Festival
Posted in Whathaveyou on March 20th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
And so the Fall tourscape continues to unfold. King Buffalo heading abroad again is news, I think. They’re playing RippleFest Texas at the end of September, and between Keep it Low 2023 on Oct. 6-7 and the also-Sound–of–Liberation-affiliated Lazy Bones Festival in Hamburg, for which they were confirmed last week, it looks like they’ll once more spend at least the better part of a month on the road. Good to know these things.
Joining them in this whopper of an announcement is the e’er aggro Mantar, reinvigorated doom legends The Obsessed — who seem to be hitting the touring circuit that much harder with their revamped lineup — the reliably-unhinged Eyehategod, upstart rockers Slomosa, and Humulus, Dirty Sound Magnet, The Moth (who rule and hopefully have a new record coming), Eremit, Lucid Void and masked marauders Iron Walrus. It’s a busy one, but check out the generational blend between the likes of Colour Haze, The Obsessed, Eyehategod and Alabama Thunderpussy and the likes of Slomosa, King Buffalo, and Lucid Void.
Seems to me like we’re in a pretty killer moment of established acts still getting out and releasing quality material (The Obsessed have a new album that hopefully will be out concurrent to this tour) and newer bands on the rise. As the 2020s play out post-pandemic, this may be the shape of the next few years. Let’s learn from the past and support the shit out of the next generation of bands, hmm?
Here’s the latest:
NEW BANDS ADDED TO KEEP IT LOW FESTIVAL 2023
Hey Keepers,
we’re super stoked to present you the latest additions to our Keep It Low line up!
Please welcome to the bill:
MANTAR The Obsessed King Buffalo EYEHATEGOD Slomosa Dirty Sound Magnet Humulus THE MOTH Eremit Lucid Void IRON WALRUS
Posted in Questionnaire on January 24th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Cécile Ash of The Moth
—
How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
I try to realize everything that is important to me. Some projects though will never see life, because of fate, because of circumstances that were beyond my power.
Describe your first musical memory.
I think it was the French melody of a wind-up music toy my brothers and I had as toddlers. My mother sang us the lyrics that belonged to it: „Combien coûte ce chien dans la vitrine, combien coûte ce chien noir et blanc?“ ‘How much costs this dog in the shop window? How much costs this dog black and white?’
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Concerning my own musical story that definitely was in 1999 when I met Freden (the guitarist of our band THE MOTH) and Steffen on the sidewalk of Hamburg’s red light-district, St. Pauli. I was going out on my own, not knowing anybody and feeling quite alone and lost when I met them in front of a bar. I had known Freden a little bit from his band SISSIES and Steffen was a friend of his, that I had never met before. Somehow we immediately started deep-talking about music and how we considered it should be. Right the next evening we met in a rehearsal room… Our band BANGKOK CASH was born. I had been in bands before, but this immediately felt right, like something I had been looking for, for a long time.
I had found my home – music- and also people-wise. Suddenly I had friends, a band and found the most important constant of my life: making that kind of music. BANGKOK CASH split 10 years later, but Freden and I continued rehearsing together and founded THE MOTH in 2012. We have been writing songs for 22 years now. I am so thankful that back then, when it all started, Freden, and also Steffen, didn’t care I was a woman, but just saw me as another musician. We were in our early 20s where that attitude wasn’t understood for all, and for some still isn’t.
Concerning my best musical memory with another band, this was when we toured with CONAN for a week. They are one of my very few favourite bands and having the huge luck to tour with them and listen and party to their crushing sets every night, standing next to my bandmates, was an awesome experience, just bliss.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
There have been two or three times in my life when convictions I had had about someone where suddenly and massively disappointed. This happened with the people I felt closest to or loved most at that time. So, of course the cut then was brutal.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I’m not sure if art gets better, the better you get at it. Some of the best or most brutal songs are very simple. If the power is there, it’s there. And often the rawer it is, the better. At least, this is my taste.
How do you define success?
It is when you overcome fears and self-doubts to do something that is very important to you and that you have wished for, for a long time. And keep on doing it. This will lead to a life that I would call successful, because you have nothing to regret, at least nothing that you have had power over. If everything that you want to do or be, is a part of your life, then you are successful at it. Even if these things aren’t your job or don’t bring you lots of money. Though it would be great if they did!
On a more superficial level of course you feel successful if what you do is acknowledged and liked by (many) others. This is very satisfying, too. Especially if it took you courage and lots of work to get there.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
I’m gonna keep this my secret.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I would like to write a book some day. But I don’t know what about yet.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To be a home for our soul, our wounds and emotions that define who we are in our very core. That core that isn’t perceptible from the outside, made of rage, grief, but also of a special powerful energy at life, a will of life, that is innate to oneself. Music can then feel like meeting a friend, a soul-mate, that has been through the same things. Actually, when I think of it, in my case that makes quite sense: I have only very little bands that really touch me. Because they resonate with the feelings that define me most. Just like I only have a very few very good friends. Then there are some other bands I like to listen to, like friends I really enjoy but that maybe aren’t that close to me.
Concerning making art oneself, I guess it’s similar: Having the urge and opportunity to express your core emotions, your core energy.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Always looking forward to the next summer and a stay at the beach.
[Click play above to watch the premiere of The Moth’s new video for ‘Empty Heart.’ Their album, Hysteria, is out today on This Charming Man Records.]
The Moth engage in an almost singular pursuit of scathing rawness with their third album, Hysteria. Issued like its predecessor, 2015’s And Then Rise (review here), it is a 10-track/36-minute collection that, even when it departs the death-infused thrust of songs like opener “Empty Heart” and the subsequent title-cut to flesh out its slower-rolling doomer impulses on side-ending pieces like “This Life” and the finale “Jupiter,” still retains more than an edge of the extremity at heart behind that pummel. Guitarist Freden Mohrdiek and bassist Cécile Ash share vocal duties, and the resulting approach is by no means amelodic, but even compared to the release before it, Hysteria finds the Hamburg outfit making a decided turn toward harsh sounds and harsher vibes; a brutality captured with a live-in-studio feel and punctuated by two drummers: the returning Tiffy and newcomer Christian “Curry” Korr.
The latter percussionist is a recent arrival, and even with a pair of drummers swinging away and the Sunlight Studios-esque tone Mohrdiek displays after the false start of “Hysteria,” the dominant position, hands down, belongs to the bass. Hysteria as a whole is eaten by low-end rumble, serving in some ways as a reminder of how mishandled bass has been over the decades in extreme music, all but cast out of death and black metal and classic thrash or otherwise relegated to root notes or following the guitar. Ash‘s low end is a significant force in the overarching weight of this material, and as that’s true amid the grunts and chants of “Slow Your Pace” as in the nodding and catchy highlight “Brachial” — also screaming and bludgeoning — just before. It becomes a defining element.
One gets the sense that, much like the overall push into nastier sonics itself, this is something done with the utmost purpose behind it. Hysteria is the third The Moth long-player behind And Then Rise and the preceding 2013 debut, They Fall, and while it doesn’t provide a next clause to that seeming sentence-in-progress between the first two titles, that very fact is telling of a will to try something new that is manifest throughout. There are still shades of High on Fire and heavy thrash extremists Mantar to be heard in the onslaught of “Blackness” or “Empty Heart,” but aside perhaps from bringing in the fourth band member, the change in presentation is the biggest shift from one release to the next, and at this point, The Moth have enough quality work under their collective belt to assume consciousness behind the decision rather than a happenstance of recording situation.
When it wants to, Hysteria meters out a vicious stomp, but to hear the cone-blowing brown-note low-frequency heft at the beginning of “Loose” is to understand how essential the bass is to this mission. Beneath the fluidity of vocal arrangements between Ash and Mohrdiek and a moment’s readiness to transition in pace between and within tracks like “Brachial” and the part-punk “Fail,” which is the shortest inclusion here at 2:27 and the lead-in for “Jupiter,” the longest at 5:15, and amid waves of riffs and drums that are no less at home in maximum propulsion than they are lumbering through “This Life” and the closer, the bass is what most ties the album together. There are times, in fact, at which it feels like there’s no escape from it, and while the material itself is structured into verses, choruses, bridges, ending sections, etc., that consumption lends an experimentalist sensibility to go with their root approach.
This only makes Hysteria a more exciting listen. It is a sonic curio, almost. Plenty of bands have indulged in having two drummers, from the Melvins to Kylesa and well beyond, but even as The Moth put themselves in these ranks, it’s the change in sound itself throughout Hysteria that seems most to convey their creative drive. While not necessarily a radical departure from where they were two years ago, it nonetheless demonstrates a basic willingness to manipulate their own tendencies, and whether The Moth take it as a cue and move forward in a similar direction from here, pushing into even more extreme fare while balancing that against their melodic underpinnings, or opt to try something else entirely their next time out, the clear statement that Hysteria makes is that such turns are well within the scope of their ability and dynamic.
Further, while the title of the record speaks to a (gendered) sense of the unhinged, it’s worth noting that front to back, Mohrdiek, Ash, Korr and Tiffy never actually seem to be out of control of the proceedings. There are certainly moments of blemish, but like leaving that false start in at the beginning of the title-track, the simple fact that The Moth make no attempt to cover these is telling further of the naturalism at heart in what they’re doing. Organic extremity? Free-range aural destruction? Whatever you might want to call it, Hysteria takes this balance of style and production and turns it into an aesthetic that belongs to The Moth more than anything they’ve done before. It is the result of a band willfully taking the lessons from the work they’ve done in the past and learning from them to craft something new. It just so happens that that something new is an absolute monster.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 24th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Having become a four-piece since the release of their 2015 sophomore album, And Then Rise (review here), Hamburg, Germany’s progressive sludge rockers The Moth will release their third outing, Hysteria, on Nov. 10 via This Charming Man. The record was first announced here late last year when The Moth entered their basement studio to put it to tape, and a preliminary sampling of the results of their efforts is available now to stream in the form of Hysteria‘s title-track, which you’ll find at the bottom of the post. Not to give too much away outright, but goodness gracious that’s thick. Hope you like viscosity.
I’ll hope to have more to come on this one before November gets here, but in the meantime, here’s word from the PR wire, including some tour dates alongside WitchSorrow, copious linkery and the aforementioned track stream to keep us all busy:
THE MOTH: Hamburg’s heaviest return with new album Hysteria and UK tour with Witchsorrow
Hysteria by The Moth is released on 10th November 2017 on This Charming Man Records
Signed to This Charming Man Records just one year after their formation in 2012, Hamburg-based doom/sludge trio The Moth are one of Germany’s leading underground lights.
Upon the release of their acclaimed debut album They Fall in 2013 the band was praised for harbouring a sound that cooked slow burning doom, thrash, rock and death metal via a metallurgy of riffs and bold ideas.
Geared toward full-metal apocalypse, that same sound was soon resurrected in 2015 on The Moth’s follow-up album And Then Rise, which drew justifiable comparisons to the likes of High on Fire, Mastodon, Crowbar and Kylesa. Picking up on the twin vocal play of bassist Cécile Ash and guitarist Freden Mohrdiek’s well-tempered Jekyll & Hyde-like aesthetic, the album was raw, ready and alive with ambition… and best of all, void of uncalled-for frills.
Off the back of tours and shows with Torche, Red Fang, Conan, Space Chaser and OHHMS, not to mention countless stages rocked at DesertFest, Svart Festival, Doom Over Vienna and Stoned from The Underground, The Moth return this November with their most anticipated album yet. Relocating to the same, small rehearsal room used to record their debut – deep in the belly of Hamburg’s infamous red-light district in St. Pauli – the band set about pre-recording their album Hysteria with close friend and producer José Lorenzo in September 2016. After laying down all ten tracks in one day and returning later in the year to rerecord and add vocals, they soon discovered that Lorenzo’s initial recordings best captured the band’s brutal and bewitching live sound.
With the addition of new member Christian ‘Curry’ Korr, brought in to share rhythm duties alongside long-sitting drummer Tiffy and the partnership of Cécile and Freden as full-on and fired-up as ever, Hysteria is the audacious product of a band at their deadliest.
“The title track represents the style of the whole album,” explains Cécile Ash. “That we only recorded each track maybe two or three times live and took the best version, you can really hear our character in it. We didn’t cut anything out. Imperfection is what we like.”
Released on 10th November 2017, Hysteria by The Moth will be available on This Charming Man Records.
Track Listing: 1. Empty Heart 2. Hysteria 3. Brachial 4. Slow Your Pace 5. This Life 6. Blackness 7. Loose 8. Shattered 9. Fail 10. Jupiter
Tour Dates: 5 Oct – Hühnermanhattan Club, Halle/Saale 6 Oct – Immerhin, Würzburg 7 Oct – Baracke, Münster 26 Oct – Bastard Club (w. Witchsorrow), Osnabrück 27 Oct – Music City (w. Witchsorrow), Antwerpen 28 Oct – The Cave (w. Witchsorrow), Amsterdam 29 Oct – Stumpf, Hannover 30 Oct – MTS City Sound, Oldenburg 22 Nov – TBA (w. Witchsorrow), Bristol 23 Nov – Bannerman’s Bar (w. Witchsorrow), Edinburgh 24 Nov – The Phoenix (w. Witchsorrow), Coventry 25 Nov – Riffmass 2017 (The Green Door Store), Brighton 26 Nov – The Devonshire Arms (w. Witchsorrow), London
The Moth: Cécile Ash – Bass/Vocals Freden Mohrdiek – Guitar/Vocals Christian ‘Curry’ Korr – Drums Tiffy – Drums
