MO'YNOQ - Dreaming in a Dead Language review

MO'YNOQ - Dreaming in a Dead Language 

Self-Released



So here's a black metal act from my neck of the woods, Raleigh, North Carolina. Now for those of you who don't know, yes black metal is huge where I live. Just the other night my Uber driver was decked out in full corpse paint. OK I'm stretching the truth here. Actually my driver was just recently transitioning from a man to a woman. So he hasn't grasped the whole make-up and smokey eye thing yet. Still for a few minutes there I thought Dana Filth was giving me a ride home. 


Speaking of transitioning, MO'YNOQ do not fit into the genre block of what anyone would call black metal. I learned that when I first saw them perform at last year's Raleigh Death Fest. Of course I was warned ahead of time by the show promo which stated, and I'm paraphrasing here, that they're not a hipster black metal band. I'll give em that because they have far too much raw talent as well as conviction. If anything MO'YNOQ might fall into what is known in genre terms as post black metal. As in they have blackened tendencies but as far as the black metal template goes they're over the edge holding on by their toes in a diver's position.


Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing, even though I've found certain acts pushing the post-whatever thing to be horrible. As far as black metal goes you've had bands experimenting with stretching their sound beyond the limits from the genre since the mid-90s.So after listening to this, their debut full length, I can say that MO'YNOQ are just running things their way which ain't bad as far as extreme metal goes. Aside from the an acoustic guitar opening or the piano interlude "Doomed to Endure", this is like a blackened version of mid-period NEUROSIS on steroids. The vocals are bellowing in a sludge metal way for the most part but on a few cuts there's a hint of a caustic rasp. There's some fluid soloing which breaks the blackened mold entirely which I found to be an interesting change of pace. Then of course there's enough icy tremolo picked riffs to freeze your nuts off.


While most of what this band does falls into the fuckin intensity category they still know where melody needs to flow within their song structures. And I believe that's where MO'YNOQ excels at. Sure they can bring on chaotic momentum that would make a grindcore act shudder in shame. Ya know I must have listened to this a dozen times last December, mostly during that full moon. I came away with thinking that MO'YNOQ don't fit what one would consider post black metal either. On the contrary this four piece act is doing black metal their way which is very primordial as well as invigorating. 


https://moynoq.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/moynoq