Release
date: 9th February 2018. Label: Prosthetic Records.
Format: CD/DD/Vinyl
Coma
Noir – Tracklisting
1.Coma Noir 04:41
2.Last Transmission
From The Late, Great Planet Earth
3.Galactic Brain
05:50
4.The Streets of
Bombay
5.Actual Human Blood
6.Smiling Knife
7.Furious Gold
8.The Frozen Crown
9.Chloroform
Members
Andrew -
Synth/guitar
Alex - Bass
Mike - Drums
David -
Guitar/Vocals
Stavros -
Guitar/Vocal
Review
Greetings
All,
This
February sees the release of one of the heaviest records I have heard
in quite a while.
Chicago’s
Atlas Moth release their monstrous fourth album, Coma Noir on the
awesome Prosthetic Records label. With Coma Noir, the band have
unleashed 9 crushing tracks of dark, focused, blackened metal. The
cover art and title are a nod to one of my personal favorite types of
literature. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the novels
of Dashiell Hammett. The music on Coma Noir is dark and brooding,
basically a black metal version of a 1940’s/50’s crime novel.
The
band brings a more focused black metal sound on this record and they
infuse that sound with elements of industrial, noise rock and a touch
of psychedelia that has been prevalent in the bands earlier work. The
band perfectly captures the overall theme and vibe that I believe
they are aiming for with Coma Noir.
Each
of the 9 songs presented presents multiple facets of the bands
personality. The guitars are loud and hard. The drumming is
sensational. This aspect alone sets them apart from the typical black
metal drum machine hang up. Synths and bits of odd instrumentation
are found throughout. But it is the vocals that are unique. Almost
every song has the perfect mixture of anguished screaming vocals
along with straight forward singing that keeps each song fresh and
intriguing. The songs never fall into the monotonous trap that the
majority of black metal (or metal in general) falls victim to.
The
kicks off immediately with massive riffage of the title track, Coma
Noir. The song from beginning to end perfectly encapsulates the
tone and style of the record. Heavy, fuzzed out, almost industrial
style guitar works with massive drumming and anguished vocals.
Dammit, if there isn’t a bit of an homage at the end of the song to
Metallica’s One with some double kick drum/riffing.
Last
Transmission from the Late, Great Planet Earth comes at you next
with its driving rhythms and buried sounds carrying the less than
optimistic lyrics to a killer synth outro. One of the absolute stand
out tracks is Galactic Brain. This song slows a bit from the
break neck pace of the openers with a more stomping, Neurosis style
rock sound. It opens with more straight forward vocals and a killer
riff. The Streets of Bombay opens with a low rumble and synth
based intro before absolutely exploding with face melting riffage.
Actual Human Blood follows with continued heaviness
highlighted by crashing cymbals and an industrial style beat.
Smiling
Knife shows a very metal sound and is a bit of a two headed vocal
monster featuring the screamed part and sung part. Another absolutely
amazing track is Furious Gold which much like the title track
features all the aspects that make this a truly amazing record. The
song carries a very heavy groove and brings in blasts of industrial
noise and fuzz along with some awesomely powerful vocals throughout.
The
Frozen Crown is a straight forward synth heavy rocker. The closer
is Chloroform, which starts out with some marching style drums
and leads the plodding sound of this psych heavy track. The song is
loaded with distortion, swirling synths and some spazzed out horns.
The song provides a surreal, trippy, psyched out ending to the dark,
murderous story the Atlas Moth has laid out for your listening
pleasure.
If
you like your metal dark and diverse, you should do yourself a favor
and give Coma Noir some listening time. Atlas Moth have handed you
one of the best and heaviest records to start 2018. Dig on it!
Instagram @alltheghoststhathauntyou
Words by Todd Stealey
Thanks to Becky at
Pioneer Music Press for the promo. Coma Noir will be available to buy
on CD/DD/Vinyl via Prosthetic Records from 09th February
2018.
Links:
