Moon - Caduceus Chalice [Moribund Records - 2011]Moon is a Australian one man ambient black metal project who darkly brew up a blurred, musty and grim mixture of muffled and sinister guitars, smudged & swirled blacked keyboard ambience, and processed growls/ choral drifts. “Caduceus Chalice” is the projects first full length album after an excellent 3 way split “The Haunting Resonance” that also featured fellow Australian black metal projects Nekrasov & Nekros Manteia. “Caduceus Chalice” six tracks all in all, and they last between just over two minutes to the epic near on twenty minute exit track. Moons sound is very muffled, grey and grim with everything running together into a mainly sombre and reverb heavy mass of blacked sound. The pace through-out the album is mainly slow plodding and wound down, sure there a few galloping/ semi-fast moments but for the most part this crawls along in a grim, smeared and darkly buzzing state. At times this sounds like a blacked shoe gaze record at the wrong speed with black metal growls slowly roaming over, or an ultra muffled and crawling early goth rock/ synth album socked in reverb heavy sombre growled vocals Through each track stands up in it’s own right this is best taken as one long sombre, grey and grim sonic trip. On the whole I’d say the project have quite an original and distinctive sound, and I guess the closet thing I could think to this is maybe Striborg – “Solitude” in the way the sound seems surround and cocoon you in a grim sonic way, through “Caduceus Chalice” certainly has more of a blow-out and sombre 80’s shoe gaze meet goth vibe than the aforementioned album. Roger Batty
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