Asheville, North Carolina outfit Mo’ynoq have spent the final decade dispelling the parable that black steel solely comes out of the frozen north, infusing their model of USBM with an environment that remembers their dwelling within the southern United States. Three years after their final launch, 2022’s A Place for Ash, Mo’ynoq are again in motion they usually introduced pals, fellow Asheville black steel trio Urocyon.
Either side of the cut up have a distinctly American sound, drawing their influences from USBM stalwarts Krallice, Ash Borer and Nachtmystium. Listeners looking for tight, no-bullshit black steel will discover loads to understand on Mo’ynoq and Urocyon’s new cut up, which you’ll stream under forward of its April 18 unbiased launch. Decibel additionally spoke with each bands to get deeper perception into the writing and recording course of.
It’s been roughly three years since both band launched new music. Have each of you been engaged on these songs since your final launch?
Mo’ynoq: Sorta. This band sometimes writes as a collective so items of those songs had been floating round our rehearsal house for a number of months, but it surely wasn’t till we had this cut up as a objective that they had been totally developed.
Urocyon: We’ve. Our songwriting course of is a bit gradual as a consequence of obligations in our private lives, and we can be perfectionists. The Sentient Curse was initially written for our outdated band, Shadow of the Destroyer, however we by no means recorded it and solely performed it reside as soon as earlier than we disbanded. Urocyon determined to exhume and rework it for our three-piece setup, which took a while to grasp.
How did this cut up come to be? Are Urocyon and Mo’ynoq simply two bands that exist in shut proximity to at least one one other?
Mo’ynoq: We’ve been discussing doing a cut up with these dudes since earlier than Urocyon’s former challenge, Shadow of the Destroyer, disbanded. When Dave Kaminsky joined on guitar in November of 2023, this turned a approach for us to be taught to put in writing collectively and collaborate with our Appalachian boys concurrently.
Urocyon: We turned good pals with Mo’ynoq round 6 or 7 years in the past by way of our outdated band, so that they had been excited and supportive when Urocyon got here to be. We reside throughout the state from one another, however play reveals collectively as usually as we are able to and have talked about doing a cut up collectively for years; it simply took some time to come back to fruition.
Urocyon, that is solely your second launch. Do you continue to really feel such as you’re discovering your musical identification?
Urocyon: To be trustworthy, probably not. The three of us have been taking part in music collectively since 2011, so we had a fairly stable thought of what we wished to do with Urocyon.
What are the songs on this cut up about? Are the 2 sides thematically associated?
Mo’ynoq: Our songs on this cut up broaden on a number of the themes we usually deal with: particular person struggling and abnegation as a way of grappling with the issues which can be past our management. Our mutual motivation for this cut up was to showcase black steel from North Carolina whereas working with our pals.
Urocyon: No, there’s no theme between every band’s songs. That will’ve been cool, however the principle causes behind doing this cut up had been to do a launch with pals’ bands that we each love and to spotlight NCBM basically. Our songs are each basically about man’s wanton destruction of the earth and its eventual inevitable ecological collapse.”
