AN NCS PREMIERE: AUGUST MOON — “EXITUS”

(written by Islander)

Perhaps especially to those of us whose hair is now majority-gray, it’s always inspirational to see people who first started making metal when they were still “wet behind the ears” get that itch again many decades later — but most especially when they scratch the itch in ways that should make people of any age sit up and take notice. And that’s what happened with the three Finns who make up August Moon.

As teenagers, they first came together (along with other friends) in 1992, and under the name As Serenity Fades they put out a trio of demos and an EP from ’93 to ’96. But in that same period two of those people formed August Moon as a second band with a third friend, and that also resulted in a pair of demos in ’93 and ’94.

But both bands faded away… until the August Moon trio of bassist/vocalist Mikko Sorja, drummer/vocalist Tom Henriksson, and guitarist Peter Viherkanto started writing music again in 2014. This time, it took 10 years to release anything.

The first signs of what they’ve done in their revival were manifested in a four-song EP self-released this past January, and then a further single the month after that. And now they have a debut album, Something Eldritch and Macabre, set for a December 13 release by the distinctive Personal Records.

The album includes the four songs from the January EP and that follow-on single, plus four other new songs. The album’s first single, “As Cataclysms Swept Across The Cities“, is one of those other four. If you haven’t already heard it, it really will make you sit up and pay attention.

After an opening fanfare that is most momentous, the song quickly takes off on the back of galloping beats and thundering low frequencies, with high-strung guitars wildly cutting and whirling, and the words carved by monstrous growls of abyssal depth.

And more changes quickly arrive too — flashing, thrashing chords; jubilant and deranged arpeggios; gutting chugs; drums that hammer and rock; vibrantly darting guitar melodies; and fashionings of ominous and blaring menace. At the finale, the music brilliantly spirals upward, screaming and sweeping but with an almost anguished darkness in its mood.

What that song tells us, and tells us explosively, is that the new August Moon have got impressive technical chops and wide-ranging inspirations and influences. “Melodic death metal” might be the easiest summing-up, but there’s a lot going on here, with an impact that’s as catchy as it is complex. As Personal Records has foretold, it’s both “vintage” and “unorthodox”, music made for people “who prize some purity with their weirdness, or vice versa….”

And now we’re premiering the album’s next single, also one of the four that wasn’t included in the releases from the first quarter of this year. Its name is “Exitus“.

It has a gripping start too, this time with a riveting riff that spawns images of witches and warlocks cavorting with their spells, otherworldly and exhilarating, and as the song unfolds it maintains that twisted yet rapturous aspect, yet it changes too.

Again backed by gut-heaving bass-lines and muscle-moving percussion, and again fronted by those gruesome and gargantuan gutturals, the guitars viciously jolt and magically swirl, exotic and exhilarating in their frolics, but they also peal like horns and take flight in flames — though with linings of grim menace around all the pulse-punching spectacles.

Like the title of the album itself, the music is indeed eldritch and macabre

The fantastic cover art for Something Eldritch and Macabre was created by Souls Crematorium Studio. It will be released by Personal Records on CD format, and digitally, and pre-orders are available now.

PRE-ORDER:
https://www.personal-records.com/product/pre-order-august-moon-something-eldritch-and-macabre-cd/
https://personal-records.bandcamp.com/album/something-eldritch-and-macabre