I discovered Sallow Moth through last year's Mossbane Lantern, a truly captivating exercise in tech and prog death metal whose complex songwriting set it apart from the genre's overcrowded landscape. It also somehow marked a rebirth for the project, which had limited its activity between 2022 and 2024, but since then Garry Brents has been quite active. Hydrophilous Brood arrives less than a year after its predecessor, a short turnaround considering the ambition of both records. Sallow Moth consists of Brents, also the driving force behind Gonemage, Demon Sluice, and formerly Cara Neir, joined by Hypaethral / Sanguinary Consummation drummer, Alen Gingerich. Two minds are better than one.
An enchanting cover artwork serves as an apt gateway into the album's bizarre sci-fi mythology. Hydrophilous Brood continues the thematic touch established on Mossbane Lantern, transporting the listener to the realm of Pamugara, a world where living organisms are constantly reconstructed into new hybrid species. Each track expands upon artifacts introduced in the previous record, exploring the unpredictable transformations left in these relics' wake. Expansive enough to sustain an entire fictional universe, one can only hope its potential beyond music may be realized.
The record delivers a staggering display of mixing brutal / tech death metal, recalling the mastery of Deeds of Flesh and Mortal Decay, but the projects freely pushes additional elements from progressive, jazz, and dissonant experimentation as well as surreal atmosphere into its mix. Being one of the record's most direct tracks, opener "Nebulous Appendages of Vacillant Seafoam" explodes into a whirlwind of animated riffing, relentless tempo shifts and flashy tempos, but any sense of familiarity dissolves midway through "Distended in Panglacial Advent". As soon as textural distortion is introduced in that second track, Sallow Moth fall back to it frequently for the rest of the album.
Engagement with juggling seemingly incompatible ideas is what characterizes Hydrophilous Brood more than tending to traditional death metal songwriting, and such moments are integral components to the album's unconventional flow. Impressive guitar work unfolds on "Driftmoth Vivisector" with its unsettling noisy outro, as "Biohybrid Virulence" and "Arcane Benthic Umbilicus" are wonderfully connected by a similar, alienated experimental dark ambient interjection, yet one couldn't say the riffs themselves are any easier to follow. The latter especially is a track that Sallow Moth go even deeper into abstract jazz and the vocals dive into the abyss of Artificial Brain-like growling. How fitting!
On the last few tracks, Hydrophilous Brood ventures more into the avant-garde with "Polymorphic Gnaw" (one of the record's most baffling pieces), the prog-driven title track and the adventurous "Serene Aqueous Leech". Passages here still resemble death metal but there are multiple layered arrangements that are easy to miss if you just have this playing in the background. Through a foundation rooted in classic death metal, but seasoned with considerable measures of prog insanity, hints of brutality as in Wormed, of unpredictability as in Cephalic Carnage, of tech-prowess as in Decrepit Birth, you're definitely the weird person of the party if you get this right away.
Release: July 24th, 2026 | Willowtip RecordsRating: 4.5 out of 5
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