Silver Moth – Black Bay (Bella Union) (Album Review) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Silver Moth has arrived offering music of rare beauty and vision. Out of unsettling times, new bands and sounds settle into place. The band is seven members, featuring Mogwai‘s Stuart Braithwaite. They met via  social media, conversed by zoom, then converged to record on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides. Ominous seas,  mysterious landmasses, fraught histories. No wonder they name their debut album after its birthplace: Black Bay.

Like the creature of their name, Silver Moth’s world is both darkness and light. Hints, perhaps, of Yes, The Weather Station and Sigur Ros those other masters of North Atlantic atmospherics.

Six tracks, each distinctive yet connected by sweeping soundscapes. Intriguingly insistent sounds lead us into the opener Henry, with both clamour and delicate sounds to come.  Later, there is the keening vocals, driving rhythm and wailing guitar of Hello Doom. In between, Gaelic Psalms is spoken word and cello, channeling depths of the Celtic Christianity evident in the stone cairns of those islands.

Long tracks. Journeys to be savoured. Shoegaze, prog rock, post rock…to heck with labels. Just turn down the lights, quit talking and be transported.

Perfect album for: A great sound system and a late-night glass of red!

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Robin Kearns

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