Moss

[Eoin McLove]

Moss were so fucking good in their prime. I have Sinister Histories vol 1 on here and it's something else. The slowest, fucking nastiest and most evil sounding noise that I've yet encountered. There are countless bands trying the ultra slow, wall of sound approach, but much of it lacks that sense of mystery and otherworldliness that Moss conjured up at their best. I know a lot of people hated them because they were so ridiculous and minimal, but to me that was the whole point. It sort of fed your imagination. The song titles and grotty artwork were an essential component in nudging you into a certain frame of mind. I travelled across South America in 2006 and spent many a night sitting on a bus, travelling through desert and listening to Cthonic Rites on my Creative Zen, drawing all sorts of nutty stuff in my notebook. Good memories.

I find myself pulled back to those old sounds lately and it feels like that time in the early 00s was a very exciting and fruitful time for unorthodox extreme doom. Things went sideways somewhere along the way and the bands all lost that sense of obscurity and weirdness. I suppose it became cool to play two notes for half an hour through a huge stack of amps,  but the spirit of darkened crusty filth got traded in for bland bespectacled middle classery.

I'd like to see some properly fucking evil decaying filth re-emerge- bands who didn't just mention Lovecraft in interviews to seem hip,  but actually seemed to truly invoke the beasts of his imagination through their music. Bands who sang about and musically reflected dripping torture chambers, gloomy candlelight and cold, dripping caves or the terror lurking in the hateful cosmos.

Until then I'll keep returning to Moss and a few others from that era who defied all good taste and created something important.

[Carnage]

Serious filth, almost psychedelic when you crank it up and just give in to it.

It always made me laugh that Chantler wrote for childrens' TV, too.

[open face surgery]

Never really ventured passed Cthonic Rites but always loved that. What the craic with Sinister Histories?

[Eoin McLove]

Sinister Histories was released in two volumes so far by Fuck Yoga. Vinyl collections of their early material, songs from splits etc. Raw as utter fuck.

After Cthonic Rites all you really need are Eternal Return, Tombs of the Blind Drugged and Never Say Live. Carmilla/Marcilla is the best of the clean singing version of Moss but not essential.

[open face surgery]

Will do a bit of digging. Been years since I listened to them. They still going?

[Eoin McLove]

No, they fizzled out several years ago. They kind of went down an Electric Wizardy route which wasn't great. Olly's harsh vocals were brilliant, his clean singing not so good. A few decent bits here and there- Tombs of the Blind Drugged is some of their best material. A nice balance between their later riffy style and their old evil sound- but the post- Cthonic Rites stuff is a bit of a continuous decline.

[Eoin McLove]

I went to grab the Church of the Flagellation tape, a compilation released by Padre Pio from the old forum, and featuring Bunkur, Malasangre, The Sad Sun and Stabat Mater. There was supposed to be a follow up,  or possibly even a series of follow ups and WOTH were going to contribute something if I remember correctly but nothing else ever came of it.

While rooting it out I grabbed a few other manky old doom tapes,  Moss- Tape of Doom, Bosque/Senthil split and Funeralium- Ultra Sick Doom.

Going to try to trawl through these over the coming week.

[Goatlord]

Couldnt remember the Padre's  name earlier. Moss - The Doom tape is one of the first things I got of him along with Until Death overtakes me and some other really hateful stuff.

[leoos]

You should do a top ten sick twisted metal I heard in the 00's list

[Eoin McLove]

But I'm so lazy 

[Eoin McLove]

Tape of Doom on here now. It's so minimal and nasty sounding.

[Cosmic_Equilibrium]

Moss were so fucking good in their prime. I have Sinister Histories vol 1 on here and it's something else. The slowest, fucking nastiest and most evil sounding noise that I've yet encountered. There are countless bands trying the ultra slow, wall of sound approach, but much of it lacks that sense of mystery and otherworldliness that Moss conjured up at their best. I know a lot of people hated them because they were so ridiculous and minimal, but to me that was the whole point. It sort of fed your imagination. The song titles and grotty artwork were an essential component in nudging you into a certain frame of mind. I travelled across South America in 2006 and spent many a night sitting on a bus, travelling through desert and listening to Cthonic Rites on my Creative Zen, drawing all sorts of nutty stuff in my notebook. Good memories.

I find myself pulled back to those old sounds lately and it feels like that time in the early 00s was a very exciting and fruitful time for unorthodox extreme doom. Things went sideways somewhere along the way and the bands all lost that sense of obscurity and weirdness. I suppose it became cool to play two notes for half an hour through a huge stack of amps,  but the spirit of darkened crusty filth got traded in for bland bespectacled middle classery.

I'd like to see some properly fucking evil decaying filth re-emerge- bands who didn't just mention Lovecraft in interviews to seem hip,  but actually seemed to truly invoke the beasts of his imagination through their music. Bands who sang about and musically reflected dripping torture chambers, gloomy candlelight and cold, dripping caves or the terror lurking in the hateful cosmos.

Until then I'll keep returning to Moss and a few others from that era who defied all good taste and created something important.

I agree with you that there were some interesting bands around that time. I used to go to quite a few gigs in the doom scene back then. However I never tried out Moss.

Did you ever get into Unearthly Trance?

[Eoin McLove]

I loved Season of Séance, Science of Silence. Nothing else they did managed to capture the same magic to my ear.

[open face surgery]

The next one, In The Red, is great as well but we've def had that conversation many times. Must lash them on.

The Moss comp that the thread was inspired by is fuckin hard going. I estimate 6 chords over 3 songs. Utter mankiness.

[Eoin McLove]

Tape of Doom is even more minimal than those songs  You need to be in the mood, which I am at the moment, so happy days.

In the Red was alright but I haven't listened to it in a long time. I'll root it out for a spin. I think the song writing on Season... is incredible and the production is perfect too. It's warm and full but loose and alive sounding. In the Red was more noisy and the songs didn't have the same epic quality as the likes of Raised by Wolves. But that's just my memory of it.

Edit. SOS,SOS was a huge influence on The Sunken Threshold, by the way. A lot of the rhythms I was playing on the guitar were inspired by it. Parts of Eulogy for the Sewer Dwellers too, now that I think about it.

In the Red on now. Neurosis-y.