Moly - Expressing Contempt, Scorn Or Disgrace

  by Jon Rogers

published: 23 / 5 / 2003

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Review

A four track EP that places Moly wholeheartedly in the genre that has become known as post-rock and been exemplified by Mogwai. Brooding, meandering guitars float along creating eerie space-drone ambiences, before slowly crescendoing in a haze of frantic guitar historonics and white heat. Usually stretched out in 10-minute plus instrumentals. And Moly don't fail to deliver on that. 'Do Well Doubt Not' typifies this stance. A grand expressionistic sculpture of sound that starts of with timid chisels into the block of stone, which gains more confidence with each stroke before ultimately getting carried away in a frenzy. The overbearing sense of loss - in Lacanian terminology - prevails. Ultimately, that's where this 30-minute EP trips up: what it lacks. It's a fine exponent of post-rock but is limited to being confined within the boundaries of the genre. It offers nothing new. Moly offer nothing different from the likes of Mogwai. Moly need to find an identity of their own; their own voice. If the band are going to play around with Lyotardian notions of postmodernism they need to drop designs of "the grand narratives" already documented by others and find their own individual colours. Probably though that can be used as a critique of post-rock generally. Ultimately it can be seen as music that emphasizes surface not depth - as did ambient which post-rock draws heavily upon. It goes beyond the manifest to what is latent, unspoken. Then again it also has those postmodern hallmarks of self-referentiality, quotation as well as pastiche. Then again, you can over-play your hand. 'Expressing Scorn Contempt or Disgrace' is a fine place to start though - if you've never heard of Mogwai.

Track Listing:-

1 Me And Lucifer (Radio Edit)
2 Do Well Doubt Not
3 Wherever We Stand People Always Make A Pathway Between Us
4 Me and Lucifer (proper version)

Label Links:-

http://www.tenorvossa.co.uk/