Hysteria, the new album from The Moth, is heavy like only sludge metal can be. Distorted guitars and rumbling bass lead the way as the dual vocals of bassist Cécile Ash and guitarist Freden Mohrdiek lead the charge. The two vocal styles often find themselves at odds with each other, which lends the vocal delivery an almost ritualistic energy.
In addition to a full album stream from the group, Decibel caught up with Ash for a few questions about Hysteria, due out November 10 on This Charming Man Records.
This is your 3rd album now. How has your sound evolved to this point?
The sound of our new album Hysteria is raw and nasty. It’s exactly the sound we make in our rehearsal room or when we play live and it’s the first time we successfully managed to capture it. The guy who recorded us, José Lorenzo, only put one mic in front of each box so maybe that’s the trick. Aside from an old Marshall guitar amp from the 7’0s (Freden now plays two boxes over two amps), we’re still playing exactly the same equipment we did from on our debut album They Fall.
The album was recorded incredibly quickly, the better part being done in a day. What was the experience like? What does recording so quickly add to the album?
The recordings we did in just one day were originally meant to be pre-recordings. We just wanted to check if the song structures worked. Two months later we did “real” studio production that almost took us a week but when we compared both recordings we just knew that the raw and authentic sound on those pre-recordings – even though they are far from perfect – were just…. well, perfect! All those tiny mistakes, timing variations and feedback just add to the charm. We recorded on the last warm and sunny day in September 2016 and the spirit that day was just ideal. There was enthusiasm and positive aggressiveness.
The Moth have toured pretty heavily since the early years; now that you’re a few years into your career, how has it affected your sound and performances?
Of course, we are more experienced onstage now. In the beginning singing and playing our instruments at the same time was new to us. Neither Freden nor I had ever sung in a band before but now this feels natural and we are confident onstage enough to enjoy every minute.
