Moth

 

 

picture by JAMIE WDZIEKONSKI

 

 Moth are a young band from Melbourne, Australia, that haven't been around for long, their first release being one year old.

Ok so it all started as the solo project of this guy, Darcy Berry, who plays drums in Gonzo (which last year album is pretty cool by the way) and U-Bahn (not my thing).

Darcy also creates a lot of visuals for bands from the Melbourne/Geelong area under the name Moth Creative and writes (wrote ?) a visual art zine called Conscript.

Ok it's not really true when I wrote that the first release was one year old, Darcy had published a few years before (2015 ?) another demo which does not have much in common with what came next. So I am not going to spend any time on it.

 

In 2018 though he released Initial Object, a 12-track tape out on Weather Vane Records, which can be considered as the first Moth release.

A drum machine, a synth, some distant vocals with a lot of echo to give a post-punk vibe... Moth is not hiding its industrial / post-punk influences, well didn't Darcy define it as Technological paranoid discordant robot rock after all?

Yes there is some kind of a Z-movie atmosphere in this tape, like the soundtrack of a kitschier (if that's possible) version of Forbidden Planet.

Ok ok I am being mean, there is a lot of good in these tracks and it's interesting to discover where the band comes from.

Released in November 2019, this 5-track demo is the first "official" release of the band.

I would like to cal it pure high paced mid-tempo modern rock but I know it does not mean anything... anyway it's not really different from the previous demo but with way better songs cohesion and improved energy.

It's a demo all right so it does not sound really good and in the end 4 tracks out of 5 (except for Interlude which I find a bit boring anyway) will be recorded again so I guess that Darcy was not so happy with the result.

 

With Machine Nation, Moth is taking a big big step forward, it's the band first release on vinyl and it got out on Marthouse Records in Australia but also on Polaks Records in Europe.

 

All songs written & performed by Darcy Berry hum ok Darcy but there is a real band behind you now, some members of Kosmetika, Alien Nosejob and Body Maintenance have turned a solo concept into a proper live act right ?

Except for 2021 which was already on the demo (but was re-recorded as a longer version), this EP deliver 3 new tracks of very good post-punk.

 

 

 

  What strikes me at first and what I really enjoy is that the synth is getting a lot more discreet! Moth is now a very efficient post-punk act without all the weird cheap Science fiction sounds. Darcy is still playing with a very British approach of the vocals (damn it reminds me so much of some not-so-politically-correct 80s British oi! bands, in the vocals only of course!); the sharp guitar riffs and powerful song construction are now adding real value to the now "classic" Moth formula.

Of course the synth is still here but it's part of a whole, helping the songs take some consistency and not taking over the melody as it happens too much unfortunately.

Veeka Nazarova from Kosmetika delivers great singing in Russian on Jealousy which adds variety to the record without completely changing the formula as she manages to keep a similar way of singing. A very good song.

 

 

This EP brings the band in the big league, I would say that they get closer to the sound of already established bands like Collate.

 

 

Moth's latest release, the self-released Modern Madness tape, really fits in the 7" continuity BUT with a step backward. The whole idea is a bit strange as 3 out of these 4 tracks were already on the demo, so yes Moth seems to become quite good at making new stuff out of old recipes.

Of course everything has been re-recorded and shortened a bit, which is probably why they sound so new. Yes the songs are the same but, first it sounds a hell lot better (that hi-hat on Modern Madness!) and second the energy is completely different which is why this tape is closer to the 7" than to Initial Object.

 

 

  Unfortunately it's the new song, Work, which fails to convince me... it sounds like a track from the demo or from Initial Object... which would actually make sense as the other tracks are originally from the demo but what I mean is that it sounds like it was actually on the demo...

Anyway that's the second solid release of the band in a few months only, well done!

You can listen to Moth on Rien à Faire #16.

 

 

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