Moloch, Verwüstung, Acephale Winter Productions, cassette AWP011 (2014)
For sheer consistency and abundance, very few bands can beat this Ukrainian one-man black metal ambient act who has released at least ninety recordings including splits and boxed sets in a ten-year period. This is the twelfth full-length album from Moloch and the second (and presumably not the last, not by a long shot!) recording for 2014. Bookended by two all-instrumental brooding and sinister ambient drift tracks, the album is a harsh and intense beast with grim, ragged BM vocals, an aggressive sound, pounding drum-beats and an atmosphere of anguish and hopelessness.
“Blutmond” leads the way with a tight if chaotic presentation: the vocals are screechy and running amok while drums gallop and chainsaw guitars churn away. The feeling is desperate, close to hysteria. “Spiritueller Selbstmord” seems a bit more settled, a little less chaotic but vocalist Sergiy howls with the desperation of one who knows he is damned forever. The song has a tragic air close to haunting majesty. “Negativitat” is a solid track, alternating between fast and medium-paced, with a droning low-end guitar, a sense of extreme despair and some excellent drumming that mixes up its beats and rolls.
The next three songs are of equal length (just over 4 minutes) and the Burzum (“Filosofem”-era) influence is apparent in the thrumming tremolo guitar textures and rolling rhythms on a couple of these. The singing is as heart-rending as ever and Sergiy totters on the edge of hammy over-acting. The second of these songs is almost comic in its increasing vocal loopiness as the pain and intensity escalate.
The title track is a completely different beast altogether: whereas previous songs were tight and well-composed, “Verwustung” is unstructured and holds together loosely. It is quiet and restrained where the rest of the album was noisy and verging on excess. Experimentalism with sound and space replaces raging music. The piano sound is very clear and has a stark uncompromising sound.
After churning out 90 – 100 recordings, you might think Sergiy must have overworked himself with little left to give but this album is a raw and intensely emotional creature, almost with a mind of its own. The ambient tracks are at a far extreme from the rest of the album and provide an insight into Moloch’s musical range and compositional skills. The songs slump a bit after the halfway mark with too much screechy singing from Sergiy’s shredded tonsils. The desperate mood throughout the album seems sincere and the album holds together as a unit in spite of the musical contrasts. The production may not be the best (although listening to the album on cassette with its limitations isn’t ideal) but most instruments can be heard clearly and the vocalist’s pain and desolation are very keenly felt by listeners.
Anyone who has yet to encounter the tower of releases made by Moloch would do well to start with this album and work backwards through his 90 or so recordings if you need something to keep you off the streets.
Contact: Acephale Winter Productions