{"id":603591,"date":"2026-04-13T06:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T06:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603591\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T06:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T06:55:07","slug":"the-moth-ep-pitchfork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603591\/","title":{"rendered":"The Moth EP | Pitchfork"},"content":{"rendered":"

Certain low-grade forms of depression can be easy to embrace, as familiar and comforting as an old friend. Cancer House<\/a> make downer music with the same allure, where all things lugubrious offer a strange, addictive solace. Take \u201cWaterscene,\u201d a dingy, dreary song that feels like day six of bedrest. Cobweb guitar melodies trace the room, crossing paths with spare, weary string arrangements. It\u2019s held together by the faintest pulse of a bassline. Beguiling vocals emerge from the ether: cryptic, alien, impossible to decipher. The clearest words come at the end of its whisper-hushed speech: \u201cKill \u2019em, kill \u2019em.\u201d It\u2019s a bitter, broken wish from someone crushed by life. When the last phrase swings upward and curdles, it sounds like a final gasp for air.<\/p>\n

Giving up doesn\u2019t sound so bad on The Moth, Cancer House\u2019s arresting, fully realized debut. In its blending of \u201990s slowcore and post-rock, the Chicago quartet conjures an uneasy reprieve, casting resignation not as a dead end but an inevitable, enviable acceptance. \u201cFlowers Over There\u201d clarifies the group\u2019s strategy. The reversed tape loop is a ghostly spirit that animates the track, and every other musical element is a bauble brought to life: the pitter-pattering percussion, the nimbly moving pizzicato. The vocals are sung so slowly that you can feel the shape of every word, but then suddenly, the track erupts into a fit of pained screaming. It\u2019s the kind of thing you\u2019d find on a \u201990s emo 7″, but it doesn\u2019t seem right to call it cathartic\u2014it\u2019s more like the unfurling of an ever-compounding misery.<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

A lot of The Moth is about this sense of space and weight. \u201cCamera Obscura\u201d lets you feel the throb of its kick drum, the brushes that graze the snare. As voices arrive\u2014some direct, some sampled\u2014the track is subsumed by texture, demanding little in the way of lyrical comprehension. That ambiguity feels key, really, for a song that sounds like a dusty take on Bark Psychosis<\/a> or Pygmalion<\/a>; it\u2019s easier to accept the bleak as eminently pretty when the words are hard to make out (\u201cIt\u2019s always the wrong pill\u201d is a line I only know from reading the record\u2019s liner notes). No need to belabor the point\u2014the emotions are obvious from the music itself. There\u2019s a moment halfway through \u201cCamera Obscura\u201d when guitar chords are plucked in conjunction with the listless topline, and then siren-like vocals whirl around in quiet rapture: an invitation to embrace dejection.<\/p>\n

A lot of the most somber music at the turn of the millennium was moving in its lo-fi recording quality. In its hi-def detailing, The Moth flips the script, ensuring immediate and constant immersion. Parts of \u201cIn My Pocket a Letter, a Red Wrecked Line,\u201d for example, sound like a more enveloping Carissa\u2019s Wierd<\/a> or Rivulets<\/a> or The Sonora Pine<\/a>, but the seduction of such atmospheres gives pause\u2014is this harmlessly engrossing or a dangerous festering?<\/p>\n

I wonder that when the viola begins to weep. And I wonder it during The Moth\u2019s last two songs, the haunted \u201cBloodchimes\u201d and wheezing, woozy title track. They form an extended coda of sorts, reminiscent of Early Day Miners<\/a>\u2019 best album closer<\/a>; given the songs that have come before, the nostalgic ambience is discomfiting. It\u2019s in these passages where I remember the opener \u201cCamera Obscura,\u201d whose abrupt cut to silence offered a generous escape hatch. In sticking through these 30 minutes, numbness begins to feel aspirational. Maybe rotting in bed, The Moth suggests, should be something to pencil in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Certain low-grade forms of depression can be easy to embrace, as familiar and comforting as an old friend.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[12327,64,63,134,136,1672],"class_list":{"0":"post-603591","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-albums","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}