Before I started listening to Immolated Moth to provide a review, I was instantly struck by the title of the EP, ‘The Broken Mind’. I, like many others, suffer with depression and anxiety, and each day proves to be a battle unlike the previous day, and I often struggle to win against my inner demons. So having that in my mind, I first sought to seek out some background into Immolated Moth, what I found was a complete open book of honesty about the battle facing the Moth. A solo musician, everything is put into the music, nothing is held back in regarding to writing of the fear and isolation, the cheating of death multiple times, and the suffering of severe fibromyalgia.
Music is an amazing release for everything, and Moths interpretation of his struggles come out in an assault of the senses in aggressive, death metal. Blast beats galore, guttural vocals, and plenty of alternate picking attacks. Starting off with ‘Overwhelm’, it instantly lashes out like a blackened/death metal war. The production might not be spot on, but that adds to that sense of inner struggle, the title makes it abundantly clear along with the titles of the next to tracks as to what the song is about, and the pain of this man battle is certainly not held back.
‘Insignificant Me’ follows in the same vein, tracking in like the previous at close to 6 minutes, its lyrical content tells its own story or woe, while the guitar and bass add a great technical texture to the track, almost jazz like, it holds more interest to me than the opening track musically, but it has nothing of the final track ‘Sleep’. Playing at a much slower tempo than the first two tracks, it also brings a collective of great ideas to the table as it pushes on. The horrors and pain of not sleeping can be among the most torturous of things on the mind, and this song battles those horrid periods of just laying there, unable to switch off while your mind wrecks itself over its own turmoil and intrusive thoughts.
Opening up about the battles we face in life in exceptionally difficult, especially when you have no idea how people will react to it, so taking all of that and allowing people to interpret it through music is a seriously brave thing to do. Like the facebook page explains though ‘This music of for those who suffer.’
