I have to admit that I once didn’t get music that sits sometime in the post-hardcore sound but I have come to love it. It is the shifts between feels and the excitement of that sudden switch to out and out guitar noise that do it for me. To put it simply, extreme light and shade. Why do I mention this? It’s because Ómoia sit in this sound space.
In the first of the two tracks ‘Guillotine’… sorry I’ve just got to step away from the review here to mention that the band describe ‘The Weight of Silence’ as an EP. In the days of my vinyl youth an EP was either a 7’ or 12’ single with more than two tracks. I have in my possession vinyl EPs with three, four and five tracks. A two track single where both tracks were equal ‘leads’ would have been described as a double A-side. Anyway just a passing thought that shows without doubt that those of us who got into music in the vinyl age are just living in confusion when it comes to streaming.
Anyway, back to the review. The two songs explore raw emotions and deeply personal struggles. And to reflect this the sound here, when it gets heavy, is rawer and heavier.
‘Guillotine’ takes the contrast between the melodic and heavy to an extreme. The melodic is a gorgeous as you could want but the heavy is an emotion laden howl that is as disturbing as it’s loud,
But even in the melodic sections there is a disconnect between the sound and the words that knocked me sideways in the opening part of the song. The song ‘grapples with the overwhelming emotional and psychological weight of living with an eating disorder, where the pressure to consume spirals into panic, cravings suffocate, and self-acceptance feels elusive’ and does this with a rawness and honesty that I find almost too much but at the same time find intensely compelling.
There is a feeling of being alone in the melodic parts followed by a feeling of emotional suffocation in the heavy that tells you what the song is about musically, and that is the brilliant thing about this song.
And the playing, completely wonderful. There are subtleties in the sound that draw you in and encourage you to sonically explore.
‘All Monsters Are Human’ sounds, to coin a phrase, heavy and heavier. It roars with guitar, frantic shifts in tempo and breakneck riffs. And the vocal makes equally impossible shifts in sound, speed and tone.
The song ‘is a dark, introspective portrayal of depression and self-perception as monstrous, questioning the possibility of shared pain and the hope for escape from isolating self-loathing’. And this is what it sounds like. If you’ve ever wondered what it feels like to be in a deep depression feels like, this will tell you.
This EP sounds amazing with outstanding playing and a vocal that is intensely compelling. Combine this with the raw and honest personal lyrics and music that tells their story, and you have something that has a raw emotional beauty. Terrifyingly good.
