Wow

We were already fans of Moin (aka Raime with percussionist extraordinaire Valentina Magaletti) but on Clocked Off their sound has gone straight into heaven’s hell. Clocked Off is absolutely CRUSHING, Magaletti’s drum kit chopped and sculpted into a pounding, crushing weapon that drives each track. The bass and guitars, minimal, scraping, threatening, sharp and used at precisely the right moments, provide the knives flying out at you at all directions. These are 4 tracks of aural, hard-hitting ecstasy.

Pockets uses a stereo panned drum kit with ludicrous tom work before the bass, all staccato and unmoving, flits in. Vocal samples, wiry guitar, all mastered and pushed right up against your ears. No Neck has one hell of a kick drum and warbling bass duo that’s, frankly, terrifying. Is it perverse to kind of half-wish Ian MacKaye was ranting over the top of this? Glasgow bod Fritz Welch shows up on I Can I Can’t which is slightly slower and more lopping in tempo, with Welch’s text punctuating the half speed Jungle. Closer is more akin to previous Moin forays reminding us a lot of the kind of forward-thinking rock music of the late 90s and early naughties. Don Caballero revival soon please? OK, maybe it’s got slightly more tribute to pay to Slint, but you get the drift.

Clocked Off has some lead in the “EP of the year” category, I’m telling you

Michael