  
It had been almost 4 years since I had last seen Black Moth live shortly after they released their second album Condemned to Hope. Now with their third album Anatomical Venus due to be released on the 2nd of March this year and with an updated formation, they are touring around the UK and stopped at the Boston Music Room in London for the second date of their tour.
Doing the honors of opening the stage were the local psychedelic doom band Killing Man Jaroh. I didn’t know anything about them and it was fairly difficult to find anything online, so I didn’t really know what to expect of them. They get on stage right on time and the fuzz kicks in with a sound that reminds me of the early Black Sabbath days in the best possible of ways, while the singer Soozi delivers the lyrics with a voice that compliments the low tuned guitars perfectly. While the band delivered great music and a competent show, it felt that some of its members don’t feel so comfortable on stage and most of the stage presence duties lied with the singer, but this is something I trust will change with time as the band does more live performances and starts letting loose a bit more.
As more people arrived at the venue and the crowd started moving closer to the stage, the doom band Grave Lines hailing from London and Brighton is one that I got to know about via the announcement of this tour and had been listening to on Spotify for a few days before the concert, and boy did they impress me. As soon as the guitarist Oli started strumming the first notes of the song Blind Thamyris it was clear that this was going to be a great show. The show was like a journey to the darker side of human existence, with moments like the singer Jake Harding hitting his forehead with the microphone in between singing, going deeper and heavier with each song. It’s rare to see bands that put so much feeling into their music and are able to get it across to the audience, and Grave Lines are certainly one of those bands. After the opening song, the band showcased a few songs of their upcoming album to be released soon, and only new songs, all of them great.
Time for the main event with Black Moth hitting the stage. It was quite clear that from the first time I saw them in 2013 at The Old Blue Last, to the second time in 2014 at The Underworld, and now at the Boston Music Room, the band gathered a bit of a following and some very loyal fans. Opening up with Istra, also the opening track from the upcoming album Anatomical Venus, the crowd moved all the way to the front of the venue and heads started banging. Like a siren, the lovely Harriet Hyde has a sweet and friendly presence on stage that combined with her hypnotic voice kept the crowd rocking out. Being an album tour, there were a few new songs to be heard, but also a few fan favourites, but regardless of the crowd knowing or not the songs being played, all of them were catchy enough to get everyone moving. The lack of a pit separating the crowd from the band allowed for a more intimate concert experience which ultimately resulted in a symbiosis in which the crowd and the band feed on each other’s energy and interactions, going higher and higher until the show had to end. There were some great surprise moments with balloons going around during the song Looner, Jake Harding from Grave Lines joining Black Moth on stage for a song, and there were some technical difficulties on the drums when the band was starting to play one of the new songs Sisters of the Stone, but the show must go on and while the issues were being resolved the guitarists Jim Swainston and Federica Gialanze treated the crowd to a nice little improvised jam. With the issues resolved, the band didn’t waste time and got back to playing Sisters of the Stone right away, and the crowd was still as pumped up as before, as if nothing happened. Rock and roll. The night ended on a high note with the songs Black Birds Fall and Honey Lung from their first album The Killing Jar, and the song Pig Man from the upcoming album, with some moshing served on the side. |
