Full Album Stream: Moss: Horrible Night – new album

Taking their time, English doom metallers', MOSS, new album should be out everywhere by April 2nd, 2013 – with European release occurring yesterday, March 25th, 2013 via Rise Above. Due to a slight delay, we are informed, for now turn to iTunes for ‘Horrible Night’, the band's third full length album. The six tracks, the true “celebration of horror, the arcane and the unknown”, were recorded during the summer and autumn of 2012 at Hampshire's Earth Terminal and London's Earthworks studios. Pre-order the album here (Metal Blade Records):

“ ‘Horrible Night’ is the sound of MOSS emerging from [their] cocoon a much more savage, intelligent and all the more terrifying beast. While no longer obsessed with extremity for its own sake – with weirdly infectious riffs, eccentric vocal melodies and no song over 12 minutes – MOSS remain heavier-than-thou, broadening their horror beyond any imposed “scene” expectations. This mastery of the craft is evident from the opening moments of first track ‘Horrible Nights’ – written back in 2010 it sets the course for the album, taking the twisting death-crawl of MOSS mini-epics such as ‘Tombs Of The Blind Drugged’ and administering a lethal dose of addictive melody, cooked up by the colossal riffs of Dominic Finbow and the Ozzy-via-seance vocalizations of Olly Pearson. Cuts such as ‘The Coral Of Chaos’ and ‘Dark Lady’ expand further upon this potent formula, dragging the BLACK SABBATH blueprint to its most nightmarish conclusion and ushering MOSS further into their newest dark age. With 6 tracks, MOSS prove more than ever why this English cult band is regarded exactly as such. While still no easy pill to swallow for the uninitiated, over its duration, ‘Horrible Night’ will demand complete mind control. Nonsense prefixes such as “stoner”, “sludge” or “drone” do not apply here; this is pure doom metal, a celebration of horror, the arcane and the unknown,” [we get instructed:]

“Born from a sickening lust of horror, drugs, insane occult visions and a desire to create the heaviest fucking doom metal anti-music of all time,” in 2000 in Southampton, England, “with the formative ambition of being slower and heavier than the slowest, heaviest band you can think of”, MOSS issued their share of cassettes and split demos before recording their first proper album, 2005's ‘Cthonic Rites’, with ELECTRIC WIZARD's Jus Oborn which, according to a press release, “took the listener on a journey from the bowels of the earth to the farthest reaches of space and back, heralding the coming of ancient elder gods through two massive slabs of bleakly magnificent, mind-controlling death sludge”. Listen to (and buy) ‘Cthonic Rites’, plus an exclusive bonus track ‘The Gate II’, below:

Three years of self-inflicted silence followed, save a limited 7” split with MONARCH. In 2008, MOSS returned with their second album, ‘Sub Templum’, apparently recorded “nocturnally in the mystical Welsh valleys” and released on Rise Above.  Once again overseen by Jus Oborn, ‘Sub Templum’ was described by the label as “an immense opus of occult hypnosis inspired by the macabre, masonry, marijuana and Doris Norton, a terrifying work of uncompromisingly cryptic enormity”. Following 2009′s ‘Tombs Of The Blind Drugged’ 10” and the ‘Eternal Return’ 12”, MOSS, traditionally a reluctant live act, released ‘Never Say Live’ in 2010:

MOSS features: Olly Pearson – vocals, Dom Finbow – guitar and Chris Chantler - drums