Album Review

InMe – Herald Moth

• 27th Sep 2009

It is hard to decide whether Herald Moth is an innovative reinvention or an archaic photograph for seasoned prog-rockers InMe.

On the one hand, the influence of mathcore and interesting techniques that they deploy on their latest album sends a message of creativity and ingenuity, but for every segment of originality, there is another built on loud tradition and safe nu-metal. Similarly, the ideas of the songs are tired, pale reflections of a band that once represented an exciting post-grunge thought. The predictably gothic and ultimately forgettable artwork is an unfortunate symbol of a band that seems as unsure about their artistic direction as their musical one.

With lyrics constantly bombarding against the expected, dull and depressing, the irony appears to miss InMe who flood the album with expected lyrics about the dull and depressing.

Their direction is dangerous as they move forward into an age where screamo, synthesisers and shredding have become traditional characteristics of the new nu-metal band, they mirror the trend. But the fact cannot be escaped, InMe are not a new nu-metal, they are an old old-nu-metal band. They are the uncles of Enter Shikari, the forgotten Uncles sending jumpers for Christmas and Malteasers for a birthday.

Nothing more than that, as much as I’d like them to be. I get them, I get the cynicism and the disgust, I applaud the perseverance and ambition, but with a regretful frown conclude that Herald Moth is simply borderline exciting.

In the business they are in, InMe need to be very exciting, pulsating demons with no inhibitions or they will slip slowly into none-existence, with nothing but scars, Malteasers and spooky artwork to show for it.