Entering the studio in March, AUGRIMMER sought to build on their reputation as atmospheric black-metallers by composing more complex song structures and more opaque song writing makes these German's 3rd album  a strong venture. The sombre tone conveyed with brilliant artwork by Santiago Caruso prefaces the music brilliantly.

The album walks the fine line between indie-horror music sound tracks at points and hard edged metal, opening with the Piano driven intro "The Yonder" reminds me of the clown scene in Amusement (watch that too!), and successfully transitions from innocent bird song to foreboding Piano lines to set up the album. The title track "Moth and the Moon" interplays black metal sections with atmosphere drenched interludes, before going to a longer section which conjures images of a loneliness and dread, before reinforcing it with sombre lyrics "I was lost in darkness on moist ground." Whether the lyrics were written first, then the music composed to successfully reflect them, or vice versa shows a level of understanding of imagery most bands fail to capitalise on.
"Sultana" forms a visceral double edged broadsword of high pitched vocals and low growls to add crushing texture over the music.

The overarching atmosphere in "The Lament of Gods" approach the religious song material intelligently, and offers a movie worthy jump scare (to my friend playing Fallout next to me) when the harsher vocals re-emerge. Not your standard short song filler, "The Day" revisits the carnival piano part from hell as seen in the intro... starting to think when the re-make of IT is done they should definitely do the score for it. "Oblivion" and "Aera" both serve to satisfy those with more technical tastes, offering amazing dynamic interplay between slow paced chordal parts and the brazen punches of speed, with their trademark sense of foreboding layer through out in the vocals and leads. Draug seems to embody a modern Bill Ward in the black metal world, able to lock in well with the stringed instruments but still provides jazzy fills that bounce off the other players.

The pallet clearing "The Herald" provides a punch reprieve before the 10 minute-ish monolith of "Yondering Spirits" kicks in. As a mostly instrumental track the uplifting guitar work are left to carry much of the melody and meaning, before dream-ending, brutal vocals reappear to climax the tension. It doesn't get boring and it doesn't feel over done, and provides the correct ineffable ending for the album.

As a final thought the album as a whole could be listened to during a quiet winter night, when January sets in and Christmas is a distant memory, however the shorter songs fit into your playlists perfectly. Either way get it!