UK project IMMOLATED MOTH is the creative vehicle of composer and musician Thom Bleasdale, who writes and records all his material himself from what I understand. “This Broken Mind” is his initial EP, and was initially self-released through Bandcamp at the start of 2016. According to the accompanying press release it’s now scheduled to be officially released on September 19th.
This is one of those albums I really don’t like to write about. Or to be more precise: That I dislike giving my honest opinion of. This due to the creator of this music being a person that has faced a lot of adversity, is suffering from an ailment that will be with him for the rest of his life, and on the path to establishing that this was a fact he was misdiagnosed, given the wrong treatment and apparently were close to death on a number of occasions. His music is then, presumably, born of pain, created with pain as well as serving as a vehicle for his pain unless I’m much mistaken.
It’s not that this is a really bad production as such, but it is a lo-fi, low budget production, which shows on all levels. The sound is thin and rough, the instruments are oddly balanced and sounds rather odd at times. I think primitive is a key word throughout really. The one band that most often came to mind was Venom, and then a primal and more basic version of the early days of that band in particular. At least in terms of general sound, mood and atmosphere. The compositions here are lacking the simpleminded allure of Venom however, and are altogether more sophisticated in terms of instrumentation and performance, but the primal quality of the mix and production cloaks this a bit too much at times.
Gnarly guitar cascades, booming primal bass-lines often in cue with the riffs and ongoing melodic guitar overlays are the key features, the supporting drum patterns not quite at the same quality level, although they are improving as this EP unfolds. The vocals are some kind of whispered low key grunts, they sound painful and may as well be so, be it on a physical plane, a psychological one or both.
For me this EP comes across as one that will have a finite and limited general reach. Venom has been mentioned, and I suspect I can toss in Bathory and Hellhammer into the same general level of reference: Those who tend to enjoy the earlier material of these three bands appears to me as a crowd that will get and enjoy what Bleasdale attempts to do on this production, and will enjoy and cherish this material best for what it is.
My rating: 53/100
