We have a pair of treats for you today, with our only regret being that we’re not offering them on Samhain Night, when they would more naturally aid in opening the portal between worlds of the living and the dead. On the other hand, as you’ll see, they’re capable of making every night feel like Samhain beneath a full moon.
Those two treats are the first songs revealed from Hymns to the Moon, the debut album from the German duo Moon Incarnate. These two, Christian Kolf (Valborg) and Matin Vasari (Beyondition), joined forces under the influence of the early works of the Peaceville Three – Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema – as well as early Amorphis, Tiamat, Katatonia, Samael, and Moonspell.
They may also have been under the influence of demonic possession, because this is blood-freezing and blood-pumping doom/death of a very high order.
One of these treats is “Nemesis“, a song we’re premiering today. It proves to be a master-class in sharp contrasts, like a slowly turning kaleidoscope that shifts the colors of a pentagram as the pieces fall into place. By turns, it’s chilling, seductive, and monstrous, capable of both casting sinister spells and getting heads pumping like pistons, and it’s as infectious as the plague.
The mysterious ringing of the opening notes creates visions of a haloed moon, beckoning lonely travelers into forests black. And then beastly growls put the hair up on the back of your neck just as massive chugs start hammering, their sound gritty and corrosive. The kaleidoscope turns again and synths bring their eerie shimmer, like mists that might be wraiths, ushering in elevated singing that has its own haunting shimmer.
Through it all, the drumming will get its hooks in your reptile brain (and your musculature). The growls rise to howls. The lead guitar wails in misery. The chords rise up like towers ascending in hellish grandeur from infernal depths. And the band bring it all together, creating an electrifying crescendo of chugs and keys, singing and roaring, ghost-lights and hulking beasts.
The devil will be pleased. We bet you will too.
If that song got its big claws in your neck and its haunting in your head, you’ll want to listen to the album’s first single, “The Tempest“. It brings into play similar ingredients and contrasts, but it’s even more sinister, more frightening, more steeped in misery — altogether more horrifying.
The high-flown vocals, which reach falsetto heights of madness, are spine-tingling, and so are the bestial growls, the doom-stricken soloing, and the gothic keys. It may be named for a tempest, but it feels like a time machine set for the depths of the Black Plague, submerging the listener in pestilence, death, and the extinction of hope.
Kolf and Vasari wrote, recorded, and produced their album over the course of two years in their hometown of Bonn, Germany, with Peter Scartabello (Sky Shadow Obelisk) recording his drum tracks in Providence, Rhode Island, home of H.P. Lovecaraft. The record was mastered by Armin Rave (Pavor).
Hymns to the Moon will be released on CD and vinyl formats by Iron Bonehead Productions on March 22nd, and a digital edition will be available from the band. For more info, keep an eye on the locations linked below.
IRON BONEHEAD:
https://ironbonehead.de/
https://ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/ironboneheadproductions
MOON INCARNATE:
https://moonincarnate.bandcamp.com/album/hymns-to-the-moon-available-22-march-2024
https://www.facebook.com/moonincarnatedoom