Hell Is Other People – Moirae
Release Date: 11th October 2024
Label: Transcending Obscurity
Bandcamp
Genre: Atmospheric Black Metal, Post-Black Metal, Blackgaze.
FFO: Calleach Calling, White Ward, Vorga.
Review By: Andy Spoon
When you crank up the new Hell Is Other People record, the slow-fast-slow-fast blackened shoegaze that is immediately emanating from Moirae is palpable. I think that the hype that the label has made for this album was going to good use. As far back as a couple of months ago, I felt like this album was going to be too niche for most fans of doom or black metal, but I’m starting to think that I was wrong about that. While a good amount of the bands in this genre like to focus on using the drums and guitar as the rhythm instruments, I was really impressed by the bass tones that seem to be boosted in the mix, giving a rhythmic and musical dimension to the music that isn’t generally found outside of my listens to similar bands.
Hell Is Other People generally has a sound that I think calls from a more melodic version of black or post-black metal, giving listeners most of the black metal elements with some notable differences. I think that the vocals and guitar are largely the same as most mainstream black metal you might have heard, but the drums and bass often make jumps into half-time, giving a groove element to much of the album that breaks up the more extreme tones into focused pieces. That’s not to say there’s any overdone breakdowns or needless headbanging moments to ruin the intended atmosphere. If anything, the changes in pace give the listeners a few moments in between blast-beat segments to try and re-focus on the doomy, sludgy pieces of the album that break up the furor.
Each track comes in with a much-longer-than-average run time (usually around 7 minutes), which is something that I definitely prefer in atmospheric music. I think that atmospheric tracks should really give the listener that “journey” element, allowing the audience to be led along the artists’ path. Often, black metal gives listeners that really deep, visceral pain that tends to be lost with the more aggressive death or grind genres, almost all being too violent. Black atmospheric tends to feel lonelier, more hopeless in some ways, which forms a unique paintbrush in atmosphere that you just can’t get from other genres or influences.
The overall tone of the project makes me think of a polished post-black-shoegaze that features a strong bass guitar and fairly-good recording quality and long track lengths to allow listeners to get grim vocals with a melody/atmosphere-focused musical section. If that should tickle your fancy, I think that you’d enjoy the project and Moirae as an album. Moirae is set to be released on October 11th on Transcending Obscurity Records.
(3 / 5)
