Portal’d through an unknown vessel and rapidly hybridized in high-mutagenic, continuous evolutionary event our protagonist undergoes a mind-and-body bending transformation reflected within the volatile surrealism of Dallas, Texas-area progressive death metal duo SALLOW MOTH‘s fourth full-length album. Illustrating a changeling in the midst of adaptive writhe ‘Hydrophilous Brood‘ offers a surprisingly brutal yet lushly abstract form of progressive technical death metal, a steady stylistic transformation built to match its imagery across its length. The ratio of transporting movements and tightly writ, virtuosic brutality is ideal here as the band begin to harness and meld their eclecticism into imaginative, increasingly experiential forms.

Sallow Moth manifested back in 2016 as one of many projects from musician Garry Brents who has been active in online experimental music spaces since at least the MySpace era. Though it is typically tagged as a death metal project his work under this name acts as the sort of keystone atop a series of efforts/configurations starting in the early-to-mid 2000’s (re: Semen Across Lips) where interest in progressive/melodic death, post-rock, black metal and hybridized death-grind would all coalesce into an inconsistent musical ideal applied to a sci-fi/fantasy concept. I won’t repeat all of the observations made per their discography in review of album number two (‘Stasis Cocoon‘, 2021) but everything from Gorguts and Edge of Sanity to ‘Elvenefris‘ and millennial post-hardcore could be referenced on the path towards the summary dissolution of the band in 2022.

Revived in 2024 as a medium for their wild glom of progressive metal ideas and brutal death metal stoked delivery Sallow Moth would seed a second era for itself with ‘Mossbane Lantern‘ (2025) a spastic third full-length album which’d done well to reframe the earliest ambitions of the artist. Inspired by the jarring juxtapositions and belching mania offered by early Mortal Decay and Wormed yet delivered with the ebullience of a brutal prog album that third LP from Brents is now presented as framing for future exploration, leaving ‘Hydrophilous Brood‘ as both a quasi follow-up and a brutality focused portal opened beyond ‘Mossbane Lantern‘. With this in mind the most key provenance one could gather on the way to this new album is the previous one but if you are interested in the concept addressed within you can poke around the various descriptions on their Bandcamp page to get a sense for the lore.

Guest contributions have increasingly been a part of Sallow Moth‘s work in recent years but outright collaborations have typically been limited to new or different projects. This makes it all the more notable that drummer Allen Gingerich (Hypaethral, Tombseeker) has been brought in on the kit for ‘Hydrophilous Brood‘ as well as some contributions to writing and some guitar performance. Much like ‘Mossbane Lantern‘ a long list of guest vocalists and lead guitar spots help to color the experience here but nothing one’d likely catch unprompted on a casual listen and nothing as transformative as the inclusion of a skilled human drummer. If nothing else a second set of human hands lends the full listen a sense of momentum which feels additionally seamless in its oppressive flow yet no less structurally taut.

Time moves slower within this portal to dimensional nest Pamugara as the congested, maximal punish of ‘Hydrophilous Brood‘ crushes through its eight ~4-5 minute pieces sans any of the breathing room afforded its predecessor. Deeply guttural vocals, frantically thrashed out riffs and plenty of crookedly steering blasts run a maze through opener “Nebulous Appendages of Vacillant Seafoam”, bringing some fair linkage between the brutal wiles of the early 2000’s and the bizarro progressive/technical mutations achieved beyond. The effect is almost deceptively straight forward in impact ’til the ear begins to catch quieter details, such as the vocal guest spot begins to create a feral, unhinged tone beneath what is otherwise fixated progressive/technical death.

Rather than provide stark contrast between searching prog-death movement and tech-brutality here Sallow Moth integrate both into their flow without pause, rarely fully changing hands with the total ratio and generally keeping the pace hot as ‘Hydrophilous Brood‘ roars and beasts through the first half its ~38 minute roll. Though this dynamic could be loosely compared with anything from Artificial Brain to Afterbirth at face value the duo’s work doesn’t quite commit to the surreal as fully as the former nor do they escape the corporeal to the degree of the latter. There are broader pooling thoughts on offer later on but within most of Side A the tendency is toward elaborately cut riffcraft bearing militance more than moshable froth a la peak Deeds of Flesh, or nearby some of the band’s earlier referenced inspirations. “Driftmoth Vivisector” is probably the most active and mindflayingly impressive movement in this sense, sliming fast and loud between states of mind phrase-after-phrase. In direct comparison “Biohybrid Virulence” stretches further into a post-hardcorish/post-metallic break at its midpoint, funneling that same amount of abstracted energy into one reeling moment while maintaining a proper riff count in surround.

Side B stretches even further beyond the harried salvo that kicks off ‘Hydrophilous Brood‘, going as far as to come to a full stop at least once along its craggy path through “Arcane Benthic Umbilicus”. There I think Sallow Moth‘s work on this record pushes past the point of a unique take, contributing some of their best work to date within their slowed, abstracted states. The belching, watery fizz of “Polymorphic Gnaw” is the biggest step outside of the zone here, an important peaking high for the full listen in terms of pacing, relief and transformation. The endpoint of that transformation is basically a brutal death pumped jam session by the time we hit the float through closer “Serene Aqueous Leech” where break beats, harmonized bass duels, and a full drop into dead lounge fires off amidst movements which nearly recall the odd swipe of stuff like ‘Probing Tranquility‘ in the rattle through.

The sensation of passing through dark-forested gauntlet, hitting a threshold for corruption, and transforming into a vaguely recognizable, placidly deranged monstrosity in the end isn’t lost upon me if that’d been anywhere nearby Sallow Moth‘s illustrative intent here. Though ‘Hydrophilous Brood‘ is presented as an overgrown branch from the foundation of the band’s previous album it easily overtakes its impact, generating punishing intrigue and surreal experience beyond the prior work’s mélange of intuitive movements. Though the idiosyncratic brutality achieved by the duo is the major draw here outright the total effect of transmogrification within this album makes it by far the best work from the band to date. A high recommendation.

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