Review Summary: Sallow Moth is taking death metal to new heights.
It has been said many times before, but death metal has really evolved over the past 10-15 years. Bands are adding in different elements such as the ever popular dissonance, progressive touches, black metal tinges and so on. Sallow Moth is a band that was formed by Garry Brents of Cara Neir fame, but his music here isn't close to the blackened/crusty screamo that the former was. Sallow Moth plays an extremely dark and technical style of brutal death metal with wacky instrumentation and off-kilter atmospheres that make you feel like you're stuck somewhere in the Upside Down. This band has been evolving for the past few years and adding extra flares of uneasiness to make the listener feel as claustrophobic as possible and their newest album,
Hydrophilous Brood, is just the latest example of that.
I'll start by saying that this is definitely the best release that Sallow Moth has put out thus far. It shows off both the brutality and technicality of previous releases while kicking up the black metal-esque atmosphere to one-hundred. The riffage is somewhat dissonant, but they keep the essence of the brutal death metal genre. They're not slammy by any means as much as they are eccentric and esoteric in nature. Each chord sounds like a punch to the gut while remaining progressive as hell. People hear “prog death metal” and immediately think of bands like Opeth and/or Be'lakor, but Sallow Moth takes the term “progressive” and transforms it into something completely dark and malevolent. Like I said, this isn't a black metal release by any means, but the essence of the genre is there strictly in terms of the hellish atmosphere created by the instruments.
The vocals compliment the instrumentation to absolute perfection and illustrate another element that makes
Hydrophilous Brood sound as evil as humanly possible. Low gutturals sound as if they're coming at you from another dimension while high-pitched squeals make the listener feel like they're being screamed from some sort of cosmic abyss. Garry Brents has always had a knack for making his vocals sound as straining as possible yet somehow as beautiful as you can sound in death metal. I mean, of course they're not beautiful in the normal nature of the word, but they fit the music perfectly and are varied enough to where they never sound one-note.
Sallow Moth was always a band that I felt was on the verge of something amazing, but never quite put all of the pieces together. Their previous releases were definitely worthwhile, but to me, were missing just a little something that could make something truly special. Well, all of those concerns are put to bed here with
Hydrophilous Brood and Garry finally released something that could be considered close to a death metal classic. This album takes modern death metal to a new level, in my opinion, and shows just how far the genre has evolved in the past decade or so. It's amazing what you can do when you throw ideas off the wall and still make art as cohesive and well put together as this and I'm more than excited to see what Sallow Moth does in the future.
