Band:	Black Moth
Album:	Condemned To Hope
Style:	Stoner metal
Release date:	September 15, 2014
A review by:	R'Vannith

01. Tumbleweave
02. Set Yourself Alight
03. Looner
04. The Undead King Of Rock'N'Roll
05. The Last Maze
06. White Lies
07. Red Ink
08. Room 13
09. Stinkhorn
10. Slumber With The Worm
11. Condemned To Hope

Merely hoping for their tunes to be deemed catchy isn't Black Moth's manner of proceeding. Cunningly combining rock 'n' roll energies and a darkly charred stoner metal presentation, it seems that they would condemn passable song writing to deliver catchy tunes by natural force of habit.

In all likelihood it's for the best that Black Moth have emerged from their garage to boldly stride out some streamlined stoner metal tunes. The unabashed and lascivious lyricists from Leeds have set out without compromise, moving on from the darkly doom fuzz of the debut in The Killing Jar and up the newly designated stoner slopes of Condemned To Hope. Though, any hope that the band presents a more cheery humour and rose-tinted outlook within this new effort are expectedly quashed. As always, the tint comes in black. "Mothic horror", as they've cleverly called it.

While the band still maintains an individual take on a sound saturated in the impurities of stoner rock and doom metal, these qualities have more-or-less been polished and rendered as one-and-the-same in their fresh direction. Here we're presented with a set of stoner metal cuts which remain characterised by an up-tempo rock rhythm, wholesomely represented bass-lines and garage distortions, all of which are subjected to a doom inflection that continually pulls back the pace of tracks like "The Last Maze" and slows the lick of the riffs. It is the abundance of these licks which give Black Moth their advantage and sense of purpose; their resourceful ability to attach hooks aplenty within a tune, which continues to be well demonstrated here in inventive guitar leads backed by ample heaviness in the rhythm section. Vocalist Harriet Bevan has found a voice more her own, and one not quite as easy to pin down to an Ozzy-like ire granted by the doom burrowed context of the tunes. On this record she identifies her own strengths and performs with a focus forwarding the decisiveness the band as whole demonstrates stylistically.

While the delivery somewhat retains the garage grit of the earlier album effort, and their days as an explicitly garage rock styled band under the name The Bacchae, the qualities of this record in terms of production are in its well finished stoner metal tones and overall texture; a smoother sound more suited to the focus of style they've decided upon. What they've refined the sound to here certainly doesn't nullify personality or edge, simply presents it in a manner more neatly defined, to the general enhanced performance of the band as a group. Reliance on the diversity amongst the tracks remains a remarkable asset, and while not all of them boast leads as striking as the title track or lines as singable and memorable as the percussively lively "Set Yourself Alight," they maintain general variance and offer something of their own to this studio effort.

Condemned To Hope is an earnest example of metal refinement without the detrimental loss of character. Black Moth remain wicked whichever way they go.