Into The Moat "The Design" (Metal Blade)
By Kenny Irwin
Monday. Jun 06, 3:14 AM
Sick, sick monster riffs with elegant jazz rhythms.

How does a band really grab your attention? I mean really, it’s all been said and done a million times, so when you hear an album that makes you say “hey, who’s this?” is when you really pay attention. This is exactly what happened with me when I first heard Into The Moat’s new/debut album The Design. It’s because the album starts off with “Century II,” which is the sickest intro I’ve heard since The Haunted’s “Dark Intentions.” The intro is one of those that starts off faintly playing this sick breakdown type shit, getting louder and louder as the band plays more intensely. I assure you that, if you hear it, you will ask yourself “who is this band and why don’t I have this album?”

This young five-piece from Ft. Lauderdale, FL actually started as a one-piece back in 2001 when drummer Matthew Grossman started playing and recording all the instruments himself. He eventually found some friends who loved the Rock as well, formed a real band and started playing out. About six months later the band made some changes with their sound: specifically, they moved bass player Kit Wray to guitar and had him take on more of a writing role. They released an EP called Means By Which the End is Justified on Lovelost in May 2003, which turned a lot of heads in the underground hardcore/metal scene. It eventually won over Metal Blade.

Metal Blade released The Design this past March, and it has been getting amazing reviews and opening up so many more doors of opportunity for the band. Into The Moat are an amazing experimental hardcore/metal band that are just filled with talented musicians. They have that new, “all over the place” type of rock that will be rocking out one second with a simple crashing breakdown, then all of a sudden go into some off beat double bass chaos followed by jazziness. Sounds crazy, but the kids are really digging it these days. Imagine Between The Buried And Me mixed in with a little bit of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Candiria (without the rap parts, of course). The screams vary from Coalesce-style to death type growls. All their songs are structures that they must’ve taken hours to get tight. Or maybe not. Maybe they are so good that they can just write these types of crazy double bass filled, crushing monster riffs with elegant jazz rhythms without even trying. If that is true, then I am never playing my drums again! Well not really, but they are really that good.

Into The Moat are also way big into the military thing too, I guess? They have a ton of military shirts on their site, and in the second song “Empty Shells” singer Earl Ruwell IV roars out “Grasping my first weapon / as a protector / wearing my armor / swollen with pride.” Also, later in the song the music stops and a loud sample of a machine gun goes off for a couple seconds. Who does that? It’s so awesome! Fits right into the bombardment. Every song is all over the place, with fast paced snare fills and growls and high pitched whammy special sneer sounds that’s like a car breaking at the last second.

Most songs on this album go pretty quickly and last about two to three minutes each. The only exception is “Beyond Treachery,” which is five minute-plus and has the singer cue in the rest of the band with the line “of the arsenal”… band goes nuts! “Of Weapons on This Earth” – again, war/weapons – great stuff for the kids! This songs also displays the mastery of the guitarists (Kit Wray and Rob Shaffer) and bassist Joshua Thiel and how well they play off each other. The only shocker comes at the very end of the album with “Prologue”: it starts off with a smooth off-tempo beat, going into the crazyness that lasts their normal three minutes… but then their burning guitar solos end with four minutes of mellow ambient type string work? I swear, man. You gotta hear it. I remember I first heard this when I was doing the dishes and thought I was listening to some other album that I needed to change.

I just recently had the opportunity to see Into The Moat live at New England Metal and Hardcore Festival (great fest once again: thanks Ogre!) and they tore shit up. Kids loved them too, filling up the upstairs stage. The band were loving it, and you could tell they were psyched to play in front of a large audience (considering they are a fairly new band from Florida). I really wanted them to open up with that intro but they went straight into the songs. Plus, the singer wore flip flops! I know you’re from Florida man, but c’mon that’s some lame shit.

They seriously blew me away. They had no flaws and hit everything amazingly tighter than the album. If you get the chance, go see Into The Moat live. You will not be disappointed. If you can’t, then go get The Design and rock the fuck out.

Horns Up Bitches!
www.intothemoat.com
www.metalblade.com

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Kenny Irwin

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