Review Summary: Tunnel vision.
There is a subset of progressive metal that remains relatively undisturbed; one that is surrounded by waves of tireless fanboys and their musical sensibilities. It is progressive metal that makes you "feel". It combines mainstream production technique, layers of reverb, and triumphant chord progressions to elevate your soul to undiscovered echelons of fulfilment. Polyphia, Plini, current Intervals, Sithu Aye, and arguably the kingpin of the bunch, David Maxim Micic, are all out to get you feeling tingly inside as you weep by your newly abandoned guitar. It's unfortunate then, that the man behind the universally acclaimed
Bilo 3.0 that was key in popularising this craze would go full circle, aping the ideas he inspired.
Who Bit the Moon sounds like every happy-go-lucky prog record released in the past five years without the prog, and while it is definitely a competent piece of music, I'm hard-pressed to say it does anything more than the absolute minimum.
I was exactly twelve minutes and fifty-three seconds into this album when I realised nothing interesting had happened. In fact, the minute-long "Beaver Moon" interlude proved to be my wake-up call and still remains a highlight of the album regardless of the fact it is just a warped vocoder piece with a few oddities scattered throughout. Unlike any other song on the album, it sounded hand-made, rather than manufactured. I didn't get the sense I was listening to the product of tried and tested formulas, rather an imprecise result of quiet experimentation. Follow-up track "697 Days" might just be the biggest offender on the album. It's a repetitive slog through recycled ideas and bland instrumentation. Synths and patches sound stiff and stale. There is no actual indication that I'm listening to anything remotely close to progressive, and that's the very element that made Micic's music so enthralling to begin with. It is structurally sound, yes. But so are infomercial soundtracks. It seems like Micic is aiming low with
Who Bit the Moon, and it is unfortunate given the nuggets of gold dispersed amongst the noise.
Production is always a divisive topic in metal, with many claiming surgical precision to be somewhat of an antithesis to metal's volatile roots. While I typically beg to differ, Micic proves repeatedly in
Who Bit the Moon that polishing every element can be a huge detriment to attempts at an emotional payoff. The aforementioned stiffness isn't just evident in the chosen patches; this album sounds too damn clean. I just have to return to "679 Days", a song so surgically precise that I struggle to imagine how it even exists in Micic's largely spontaneous discography. Especially when the mammoth title track makes an appearance at the very end and reminds us that
Bilo 3.0 was no accident. There is a refined edge to the overall timbre of the song, yes, but an increased usage of traditional instrumentation and less of a reliance on nailing every take pushes the song well beyond the majority of the material on display throughout this album. It in no way warrants a 10-minute runtime but it spruces things up enough to be relatively engaging.
This wouldn't be a Micic record without some chugging. By and large, this comes in the form of "Damar", possibly the only song on the record that could truly deserve the "progressive" tag. An eerily human lead synth bounces up and down over a three-note riff with surprising success. While the song flow is easily the worst on the album, it is undoubtedly the most entertaining piece in the packet. There is a bizarre tonal change midway through the track that seemed to serve no other purpose than creating a false sense of grandeur. Even with this kept in mind, the rather adventurous attitude of the track makes it attractive. A shame then that the poor structuring and unnecessary shift in style prevent it from necessitating any room for replayability. It is captivating on first listen, even through its flaws, but I feel no desire to return to it. The fact that possibly the most complex riff on the entire album consists of no more than three notes is also a tad disappointing.
Here lies the main flaw of
Who Bit the Moon. It feels like the product of tunnel vision. As if every song was written bar by bar, beat by beat, recorded and edited meticulously second by second. Micic is on autopilot. It is never apparent that this album wants to push the envelope in any regard. There are glimmers of hope scattered throughout but if this is any indicator of things to come, Micic isn't performing for the progressive scene anymore. His kooky aesthetic and cutesy fan interactions never worried me at first, what with the success of Destiny Potato's debut offering, but the emphasis on musicality has been almost entirely usurped by lukewarm pandering here. The choice is his; reinvigorate or settle for less. Until he makes that blisteringly clear, it is difficult to find much in
Who Bit the Moon to truly appreciate.
