Originally written by Matt Longo
In recent memory, there isn’t another album I’ve wanted to review based solely on title alone than Horrible Night by Moss. It manifested from my inbox, oozing with the promise of creepy crawling doom to envelop the turmoil of a wicked work week. The trio’s Sotonian sludge is now surprisingly easier to digest than ever, eschewing the extended entombed claustrophobia of previous efforts.
A wiser man than myself once said that the only way out is through, which is how one survives this particular strain of growing Moss, with its nebulous, expanding breadth (“The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” comes to mind). The latest shade on their fuzzy palette is clean vocals from Olly Pearson, which would find the band stretching nearly in Pallbearer territory, if they embraced greater variation. You can understand what Pearson is saying for the first time, however the music basically plods along without much heed (and seemingly no need) for a listener.
See, that’s where these dudes get lost in the mix, and perhaps helps to explain why Moss has more splits and EPs than proper albums — they’re too speedy for typical drone, and miss the dynamism of traditional doom. Already marginalized in a small market, they lack a clear voice, although they absolutely seek it.
Notice how they regress just past the halfway mark in the lead track; the strike is more effective with moderate envenomation, their Eibonic mix perfectly potent. So considering that level of craft, perhaps the added repetition behind “The Bleeding Years” is then deliberate, as its reflective, regretful tone concludes with a telling cough as exclamation point, arguably all in purpose of the song. Another vice is answered in “Dark Lady”, the overarching gothic theme taking on a clearer, more seductive shape. Drummer Chris Chantler pounds a solid backbone for the journey, even as Olly lets loose halfway through this track and occasionally elsewhere, like the grim flatness from sub-chthonic Cthulian netherworlds in “The Coral of Chaos” — the most fully realized song on Horrible Night — channeling true primal terror.
For a band named Moss, they should (and usually do) sound ostensibly organic. But sometimes there are either bits missing or they don’t end elegantly. While composed of capably crushing parts, both “Horrible Nights” and “Dark Lady” fail to deliver a satisfying final blow; the former fades to nothing and the latter cuts abruptly. The opposite problem plagues “Dreams from the Depths” — a languid instrumental whose spirit was better served when embedded in the title track on Tombs of the Blind Drugged. Here on Horrible Night, guitarist Dominic Finbow’s barely buoyant economic notes bubble slowly to the surface, as if they were breaths from our protagonist, dragged to abyssal madness. And an epiloguish “I Saw Them That Night” begins the end with a layer of distortion that disappears suddenly instead of gracefully fading out; it reemerges later for a proper comedown… only to quickly sever again. There’s this lingering obtuseness that could be stripped away, because for all the desired submersion, distractions like those can pull a listener out of the moment.
Well that’s not too “horrible” I suppose — nothing like what the characters in these Lovecraft homages experience, anyway. The promising side is that Moss continues to gradually improve. On Horrible Night, they do so many things right: the concept is a keeper, vocals are more confident, production is stronger, the mood pristine… or whatever would be “pristine”’s hideous equivalent. Rolling Stone is unlikely to ever gather them, but these bryophytan Brits can burgeon in the underground.
