Reviews list for Kayo Dot - Moss Grew on the Swords and Plowshares Alike (2021)

I was only previously familiar with Toby Driver's three most highly praised classics in Maudlin Of The Well's "Bath" & "Leaving Your Body Map" & Kayo Dot's debut album "Choirs Of The Eye" before taken on their brand new tenth full-length so I had no idea of what creative path he'd be taking eighteen years later. I actually never agreed with those records being labelled as "avant-garde" but 2021's "Moss Grew on the Swords & Plowshares Alike" is another story altogether. It's a weird & wonderful journey through sounds that appear to be completely foreign, sometimes welcoming the listener in & at others leaving them recoiling. It's incredibly ambitious but the vast majority of its run time seems to be so focused & fully realized making it a landmark record of truly avant-garde metal music.

There's a significant 70's progressive rock component on display here that I really dig. The complexity of the instrumentation is quite brilliant with the sheer psychedelia of some of the climaxes really hitting a sweet spot for me. I don't love the harsh vocals. They're definitely the weakest element in Kayo Dot's sonic arsenal however the clean vocals are the spitting image of Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour & hit a lot closer to home for this old Floyd tragic. That's not the only reference to the masters of timeless prog rock either with some of the atmospheres presented here having a similar feel & the unusual open-string guitar parts making reference to similarly Floyd-inspired Canadian progressive metal outfit Voivod. The way the rhythm section is incorporated within the more complex sections is nothing short of invigorating while the melodic lead guitar work provides a wonderful juxtaposition to the chaos ensuing beneath with the more intense Morbid Angel influenced metal sections providing a similar counterpoint for the smoother progressive meanderings of tracks like "Void in Virgo (The Nature of Sacrifice)".

This all amounts to a genuinely captivating & unique musical experience that's reinvigorated my appetite for the more avant-garde strains of metal music. How an album can sound so bizarre yet so intensely ethereal at the same time is a huge feather in Toby's cap. The closing drone passage of epic closer "Epipsychidion" & the slowly building psychedelia & crescendo of album highlight "Get Out of the Tower" are a marvel to behold. Don't get me wrong, "Moss Grew on the Swords & Plowshares Alike" is not a perfect record but it's certainly an intriguing & rewarding one that should be on the radar of all members of The Infinite. I think I still favour the Kayo Dot's classic 2003 debut album "Choirs of the Eye" over this one but there's not a lot in it & I think that in time this release will be spoken in the same terms.

For fans of Maudlin Of The Well, Voivod & Ehnahre.

P.S. Am I the only one that hears absolutely bugger-all gothic metal here? The open-string riffs sound like something that might have come from an early 80's goth rock artist like Bauhaus but doesn't the music have to actually sound gothic for a gothic metal tag to be relevant? Why is the RYM community so adamant about having this record tagged as such? I'd suggest that there's actually more of a post-punk influence personally. I can definitely hear where the post-metal references are coming from but it's only a small piece of the overall puzzle so I feel that an Avant-Garde Metal primary & a Progressive Rock secondary is the most appropriate tagging.