Moin

English trio Moin (Joe Andrews and Tom Halstead of Raime plus drummer Valentina Magaletti) straddled the border of post-rock, hardcore, minimalism, glitch electronica on Moot (2021), a mostly instrumental album (save some annoying spoken-word recitations). Theirs is a post-dada art of loops and collage that leaves songs intentionally unfinished, incomplete, drained of passion or purpose. The repetitive hard-rock riffs of Crappy Dreams Count and An Utter Stink never release the looming energy. The haunting Lungs, the spastic suspenseful soundscape of Right Is Alright Wrong Is to Belong and especially the ultrathin funk-rock of Don't Make Me Wait are psychological essays as much as musical demonstrations.

The music on Paste (2022) is (intentionally) the opposite of "articulate". The songs struggle, sink in invisible quicksands, gasp and grope. They spin in aimless circles, like in Life Choices. At best, they evoke slow-burning dissonant psychodramas, like in Yep Yep. The most fascinating moment comes when the deconstruction goes too far, in In a Tizzy, and leaves behind only the skeleton of a song. The recitation is still a handicap through.

You Never End (2024) offers more of this dark poetry in slow motion. The moaning Guess It's Wrecked feels like a zombie version of gothic dark-punk of the 1980s, but Cubby, wedding a lethargic guitar beat with distorted vocals, It's Messy Coping, a loop of vocal fragments and distorted guitar, the false funk-rock jam Anything But Sopo for contorted drumming, chopped-up shouting and whistling organ, and especially What if You Didn't Need a Reason, for detuned acoustic guitar, ghostly chanting and dub-like bass distortion, present a more sophisticated take on dejected rock music. The morbid guitar solo Happy in the Wrong Way is their version of atmospheric relaxing music. The closer Just Married straddles the border between "stoned" and gothic moods. The spoken-word pieces (Family Way, Lift You, We Know What Gives) waste good instrumental ideas. This is classy cerebral and intellectual post-rock, although not always poignant and profound enough to stand with the classics of the genre.