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Into the Moat
By Joannie Foney

Nothing like a new math thrash band to fill up some space in metal land. DEP & Meshuggah apparently don't own the patent on music like this. This CD is a feast of excesses, with arrangements that are too fast, then slamming too quickly a stop, then picking back up at that exact speed, though with a whole new sounding tune. I always knew that the bands that DEP & Mesh influenced would somehow be better than the obviously Metallica influenced Mesh men, & Into the Moat presents the first in hopefully a long line of next generation Calculus metal bands. 
 
From the very first song, which fades in offering little peeks at what lies ahead musically, with drumming by an ambidextrous octopus someone dumped a pot of coffee into, the songs on this CD reminded me of a race horse being reigned in during a race till the final stretch, though clearly he could slam the other horses into the dust & blast on ahead at Secretariat speed leaving the other guys 17 lengths behind if he were allowed to do so. 
 
It's not just a CD of speed & power & fighting the internal yoke of restraint, though. The machine gun sound effects in the middle of the second song perfectly encapsulates what ItM is going for. So fast it'll kill ya, yet don't the bullet casings make a pretty fountain? The drummer drives the band, & at times this seems like a problem. He is impossible to ignore, he is too obviously there, so during the slower portions, or more subtly nuanced parts, it's like getting too much of that slippery, greasy lard- based frosting from a cheap discount store birthday cake shoved into the back of your throat. The guy is fast & loud, he is way too powerful at times, completely overwhelming the direction of the song. After noticing this on three songs in a row, it occurred to me that maybe he's playing like this on purpose. Maybe, just maybe even though a brief break to play softer or slower for an eighth of a millisecond really is too impossible for someone that just wants to play as fast as he can, as hard as he can, all the time. So while the interludes & breaks really show the versatility of these guys in their writing & playing & pushing their manifesto that calculus can be your friend, music that defies the speed limit is really more fun to make.
 
If Slipknot can let their mediocre & slow drummer have part of a song to just screw around with, I wonder why this guy didn't get a drum solo? Then again, his playing is so prominent on the whole CD it's like one big long solo with singing & guitars. Don't misunderstand me, it's an excellent CD, the guitars & vocals are impeccable, although they don't just fade into the background, they do a lot more than just play catch up, and somehow they don't let themselves get buried under layers of firecracker fast thumping. 
 
Every song on here shows ItM's determination to not just churn out so much speedy noise & call it thrash, & not just throw in random pauses & call it math metal. Nothing on here drags or clunks along requiring clock watching. "Fortitudine" especially buries this idea into your brain, in case you were too slow to catch on to this 3 songs ago. 
 
"None Shall Pass" is probably the fastest one on here, starting out at a speed I knew would be impossible to maintain at that intensity level for the length of the entire song. I am so glad to report that I was wrong! The brief breaks in here were wholly insufficient for any one of them to rest for even two seconds & recuperate from playing their exhausting songs, but somehow they soldiered on. 
 
After consideration, I have decided that maybe this CD isn't the collaborative efforts of a real band as much as it's a digitally enhanced, perfect case scenario of what would happen if the next generation could only sound like this. Catch 'em live & let me know if these guys are for real, because they almost sound too good to be true. Maybe an Ashlee Simpson- like fiasco looms large in their future, because maybe only Mesh & Dep can pull this off. If so, that'll rank up there on the top ten list of all time disappointments with Metallica & Dime.   
 
4 1/2 stars, since I don't know if this is for real or not.   
 

Into the Moat - The Design
Label: Metal Blade
Rating: 
 

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