Moanaa are a Polish act, formed at the end of last decade at the city of Bielsko – Biała. Especially in their local scene, they gained quite some success, and Moanaa were able to play live on stage with known acts such as Nachtmystium, Jarboe, Blindead or At The Soundawn.
Descent is the band’s first full length release, yet there seems to be an untitled EP too, released in Spring 2010. Anyway, some line-up changes took place in mean time, and this debut was released by the band itself about one year ago. Yet, since these guys did send our headquarters a promotional copy in order to have it reviewed, and since undersigned is such an amiable human being …
This eight-tracker lasts for about one hour (indeed, sixty minutes, you smart ass). And it brings a surprisingly cohesive and firm, yet ultimately disturbing form of different genres, which get clear as from the very beginning. Acoustic Post-Rock / Alternative / Atmospheric passages are opening the gates towards 2.0-dimensions of sonic warfare by means of Sunset Growing Old. In the case of the opening track, this attitude gets clear after almost four minutes of acoustic integrity, suddenly morphing into a heavily droning and sludgy, yet still melodic and hypnotic form of Post-Hardcore alike heaviness. And then, after one more minute, some more trance-like weirdness shows up, mingling Wildhoney-ish stuff and post-acid material into a powerful eruption of deeply-darkened and mercilessly-hammering, yet still dreamy and mesmerizing craftsmanship. Things go even deeper as from the next piece, Repulsive. There are so many levels of sonic plurality, yet throughout the whole journey the core remains rather constant and coherent, despite the overload on related injections of experimental grandeur.
It’s Doom and Sludge, it’s Post-Hardcore, it’s injected with hints of Black and Death Metal too, if you want too, psychedelic Acid-Stoner or Post-Rock / Post-Metal; yet the result is so powerful, convincing, professional… I do think this band deserves quite some attention, and a proper deal with a decent label. I hope this review could help them out, because they do deserve it! There are different angles, different approaches, different injections, yet still with one specific aim, and that for sure pays off. I think Moanaa are quite unique, and progressive + renewing without forsaking the essence, and able to keep up an atmospheric approach despite the extremely heavy, merciless song writing and execution. Or in short: great!!!