Sallow Moth — Mossbane Lantern

Set deep in the sci-fi strangeness, Mossbane Lantern is a mix of high speed, frenetic death, otherworldly mystery, and technical wizardry all wrapped into an intriguing and engaging package. Starting with Jacob Devlin's vibrant cover, Mossbane Lantern tells the individual tales of eight travellers on their way to and their experience with the Mossbane Lantern, "a highly coveted artifact which allows humans to temporarily displace their corporeal form and teleport short distances within the plane they are on, while granting non-humans the ability to teleport over greater distances, including inter-dimensional travel." While this isn't obvious from the growling vocals, the imagery makes itself obvious through the different stylistic approaches, changes, squeals, samples, and other arrangements that make Mossbane Lantern stick out from the pack. Pummeling forth, Sallow Moth shifts gears often, spicing up the shredding with odd timing, interjecting acoustic flourishes, and layering in new sounds, the album is unpredictable and chaotic, but in the most delicious and artistic ways. Blood Incantation's Absolute Elsewhere seemed to turn everyone on last year with its techy, avant-garde sci-fi approach, but it didn't feel death metal enough, where Mossbane Lantern is death metal through and through, pounding and pummeling while dazzling and dancing. 

 

It's hard to thoroughly describe an album with as much going on as Mossbane Lantern, so one is better off stating what it isn't: boring, trite, or contrived. Sallow Moth's latest is a death metal smile from the first note to the last, with all those in between taking the listener on more journeys than the eight subjects of the Lantern's tales. Fun and otherworldly subject matter can open a Pandora's Box that lets out all sorts of weirdness that distracts the artist and listener from the overall goal. However, Sallow Moth keep everything well reined in and Mossbane Lantern remaining tight and electric.