The Old Believer

With An Ache for the Distance, Atlas Moth positioned themselves as one of the best and most exciting bands in modern doom scene. The Old Believer is by all accounts a good album, but it's hard to not view it as a bit of a disappointment coming at the heels of their magnum opus. The main problem is it doesn't really seem like anything new. To call it Ache for the Distance Lite wouldn't be too much of a stretch. There's some really good guitar work here, powerful vocals, convincing songwriting - it's just not as immediate as Ache and doesn't have the same staying power.

Honestly, The Old Believer kind of comes off like a rock version of Ache. Atlas Moth plays with the same template, but the riffs are less heavy and more melodic. The production is definitely more suited to rock and the new drummer settles into a mid-paced rock plod for pretty much the entire endurance of the album. While Believer isn't the best instance of the tri-guitar attack at its most impact, there's tons of good melodic interplay and understated leads. Kush's melodic baritone vocals are still great and Gianopoulos is still a good screamer but here sometimes the dual vocal attack ends up muddying the waters a bit, whereas in Ache the vocal interplay was a wellspring of brilliant contrast. That's not to say they still don't have any chemistry - Sacred Vine has some of the best dual vocal interplay of the band's career. While subtle, the keys deserve a mention. They add atmosphere at right the moments and add an extra depth to the album. Their vibe is consistent with what I imagine wandering the desert at night would feel like.

Metal isn't always known for having pensive lyrics or thought-provoking themes, but just as they refuse to uniformly abide by genre tropes, Atlas Moth hold their own for their lyrical and thematic realms. There was a lot of loss leading up to The Old Believer (great album title by the way; love the nod to Russian history). Just looking at Giannopoulos alone, his mother and girlfriend died since the previous album. A profound sense of loss bleeds into the lyrics and overall atmosphere. The lyrics are definitely above metal's usual pay grade. While drenched in existential angst, it's more the never ending struggle to find one's place in the world and weather the hardships of life than teenager moping about his bedroom. The band ties this all up with meditations on transformative psychedelic experiences in the least burnout hippie way possible.

I can see a lot of parallels between The Old Believer and Neurosis's Honor Found in Decay. Neurosis came crashing back into a brutal atmosphere and immediate riffage on Given to the Rising after two albums exploring the lighter facets of their sound. Then for Decay they did a less immediate version of their sound which was devoid of hard hitting riffs and lacked the spark that burned bright for most of their career. It was still a totally decent album and would have even gotten me a bit excited if it was the debut of a new band, but given the heft of what they have achieved it was just kind of . . . there. Much is the same of The Old Believer coming in the wake of the dizzying success of An Ache for the Distance. It seems silly to hold a good but not great against them though, Believer has its moments and Atlas Moth have managed to right the ship with their excellent new album Coma Noir.