Sallow Moth - Hydrophilous Brood

Sallow Moth is a progressive death metal band from Dallas, Texas who formed in 2016.  Their latest album, “Hydrophilous Brood,” is their fourth full-length album; they have also released seven EPs, a split album, and a demo.  

This is my first experience with this band but an experience that is impressive, nonetheless. What really sticks out for me in “Hydrophilous Brood,” is its songwriting approach.  While this is proggy and technical, it doesn’t present itself as such in an obvious matter.  None of the tracks are too ‘out there’ or meandering—they don’t get lost in their sound and remain tightly focused on the task at hand.  

I expect an album of this nature to have a lot of depth and many reasons for the listener to come back to it several times.  Sallow Moth has outdone themselves with this—this is an album that demands repeated listens.   I don’t mean that because it’s hard to get into or it takes a while to warm up.  What I mean is, these songs have a lot of details and intricacies that are just not going to be known the first time through.   

The brutality of the album is in your face and quite massive while the more outside-the-box elements come into play the more you listen.  It might be a bass riff that was missed, a jazz style break sandwiched in between searing riffs or a drum groove that pushes through under the tones of oppressive heaviness.  

That’s the magic of this album:  it’s so goddamn intense, it will appeal to death metal fans who normally shy away from tech/prog while also leaning so well into those elements that extreme fans who crave more from their death metal will also find much to dive into. 

“Nebulous Appendages of Vacillant Seafoam,” opens the album and wastes absolutely no time in blowing off faces with impressive speed and vocals that are disgustingly abrasive.   Allen Gingerich handles the drums, and some of the solos, and I’m convinced he isn’t quite—-maybe he is some creature born out of the goddamn fantastic cover art.  Garry Brents handles the vocals and other instruments.  This band is just two people?  They sound like an army.  My favorite part of this song is when the tempo pulls back around the 3:14 mark—-absolute destruction on an insane scale.

The technical flourish of “Biohybrid Virulence,” kept my brain in a constant spin while the low, gurgling vocals turned it into some weird pudding.  A seemingly random (although I know it isn’t, as everything about this album makes sense) jazz section appears, stretches out the song outside its boundaries and then snaps it back into more brutal death.  But what, there’s more!  Those bass lines are sneaky, grasping out from behind the riffs with their own little world building even while holding down the low end.  

“Arcane Benthic Umbilicus,” is one of my favorite songs on the album.  The intro is freaky as well, using only odd noises and clean tones.  The riffs kick in soon after—groovy and catchy while able to transform at will to accommodate the song’s structure.  The guitars twist and turn, a wild ride down a corridor that’s also twisting and turning.  This song feels like being pulled through a small hole and coming out the other side, not dead, but transported to another plane of existence. 

The final song, “Serene Aqueous Leech,” is one of the coolest song titles I’ve heard this year, and the song itself is among some of the wildest death metal I’ve heard, in terms of dynamics and ideas that blend together seamlessly even though it seems like they shouldn’t. In between the song’s two heavier halves, is some sort of easy listening smooth jazzy experience.  Why?  Well, why not?  It works.  Goddamn it works. 

I love death metal but usually shy away from anything too modern technical because usually it’s a punch of bullshit noodling around.  My music doesn't need noodles.  I have noodles in my cabinet.  But “Hydrophilous Brood?” This isn’t noodles.  It’s a full smorgasbord and it is delicious. 

Rating: Great