SALLOW MOTH – MOSSBANE LANTERN

(Andy Synn has the scoop on the continued re-emergence of Sallow Moth)

One of the most fascinating things in the animal kingdom, in my opinion at least, is the way in which caterpillars transform into butterflies (or moths).

After all, this is an organism which effectively spends half its life-cycle as one thing and the other half as something completely different… to the point where, if you didn’t know any better, you’d be hard-pressed to think of the two forms as belonging to the same species.

Not only that, but in between these two stages the caterpillar itself dissolves into a rich nutrient soup, becoming for a time neither one thing or the other as they undergo this startling metamorphosis.

Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that while a few fundamental structures do survive and carry over from one state of being to the next, studies have shown that certain memories, certain behaviours, can also survive the process, meaning that (to the extent that they are able) it might be said that butterflies (and moths) remember what it was like before they had wings.

And I can’t help thinking, while listening to the band’s new album (out 01 August) that Sallow Moth‘s own life-cycle has closely mimicked that of their name-sake.

If you look back on the their first phase – their larval stage, if you will – you’ll discover a band (strictly speaking a solo act, but I’ll be referring to them as a band for the purpose of this review) who display a keen affinity for the seminal sound of acts like Morbid Angel and Hypocrisy while also embracing the proggier proclivities of more modern artists such as Slugdge and Blood Incantation (check out what we’ve previously written about The Larval Hope and Stasis Cocoon for a more in-depth analysis).

But shortly after the release of the latter album the project was dissolved… or so it seemed at the time… only to emerge from its cocoon, transformed and transmuted into something entirely new (which you can read about here) that, at first glance, seemed to bear little resemblance to its previous incarnation.

And now we have their long-gestating third album, Mossbane Lantern, which strongly suggests that the band’s transformation hasn’t quite finished yet, as while you can still hear certain echoes of the likes of their Old School Prog Death influences (especially Edge of Sanity), the songs themselves have taken on a more unpredictably unorthodox and abrasively avant-garde approach more closely related to the likes of Afterbirth, Artificial Brain and – tracing their genetic lineage back even further – Lykathea Aflame.

Just take a listen (when you get the chance) to the opening pairing of “Gutscape Navigator” and “Icegorger Gauntlets”, whose madcap blend of withering technicality and whiplash-inducing stylistic shifts – slamming (and I do mean slamming) together passages of wildly contorted riffage and stuttering snare-blasts with strange sequences of warped, sci-fi ambience and unnervingly infectious anti-groove, all topped off with a visceral array of guttural gurgles and mic-scorching screams – pushes the Sallow Moth sound further and further towards the extreme(s) with each passing minute.

Sure, some of the album’s more outlandish quirks sometimes prove a little counterproductive (the “Prog” section at the end of the otherwise monstrous “Aethercave Boots”, for example, feels so tonally out of place that you could easily cut it and the record would lose absolutely nothing as a result) and you occasionally get the sense that the band’s final form (if, indeed, it has one) is still a little in flux (“Cauldron Brim Neurosilk” in particular never quite manages to fuse its spiky metallic elements and pseudo-jazzy embellishments into a fully coherent whole), but the sheer unpredictability of Mossbane Lantern remains one of its most appealing features.

The key to making all this work, however, is that even at its most variable and volatile (such as the dizzying dissonance and topsy-turvy tumult of “Psionic Battery”) or its most (semi) straightforward (see: the Wormed-influenced “Parasite Orb’s Lock”) there’s always a discernible method behind the madness, to the point that all the seemingly-random pieces – even ones which, like the jarring juxtaposition of shimmering ambience and gnarly, Slipknot-esque guitar work of “Runemilk Amulet”, don’t always make sense at first – clearly have a place and a purpose in the grand scheme… even if it’s not always easy to get a clear picture of what that purpose is while you’re having your ear-drums (and your expectations) annihilated by all this (barely-controlled) chaos.