RED MOON ARCHITECT – October Decay

RELEASE YEAR: 2025

BAND URL: https://redmoonarchitect.bandcamp.com/

Two albums by the Finnish melodic death doom metal sextet, Red Moon Architect (RMA) have made quite a stir in the genre: Concealed Silence²⁰¹² (on Inverse Records) and Fall²⁰¹⁵ (on Playground Music), the latter of which was my introduction to their craft, a very enjoyable addition to my musical palate, I might add, in heavy rotation in my car. However, as it happens more often than I’d like, the act disappeared from my radar thereafter for one reason or another but not before I had been made aware of the excellent debut Concealed Silence which was remarkable because it was the only album with founder Saku Moilanen (bass-2013, drums, keyboards) as the sole member, howbeit with session musicians Aeonian Sorrow guitarist Jukka Jauhiainen (2013-bass) and Anni Viljanen (2013-female vocals) who, by Fall, would have become regular members. For the purpose of fair judgment, I familiarized myself with the following excellent Return Of The Black Butterflies²⁰¹⁷ (on Inverse) which saw addition of Ville Rutanen (2016-male vocals) as well as Aeonian Sorrow guitarist Taneli Jämsä (2017-guitars), good but not great Kuura²⁰¹⁹ (on Grey Beton Records), and, finally, with the fantastic Emptiness Weights The Most²⁰²⁰ no doubt so good no small thanks to the arrival of Before The Dawn bassist Pyry-Matti Hanski (guitarist) to the flock, the first on Noble Demon, an album I find their magnum opus even after quadruple degustation of the subject of this review, October Decay²⁰²⁵, released on April 17th (again, via Noble Demon).

What makes, then, October Decay excellent but not as fantastic as the predecessor is the comparatively screeching slowing down of the pace to, at times, a barely moving crawl (welcome back to Kuura), while, thankfully, maintaining its celebrated melodic aspects. And, while the favorite “Decay Of Emotion” is justified in its over 12 minute length by the pace of a funeral procession and that it’s varied and loaded with multiple melodies, the equally slow but twice shorter “In Silence” lacks that justification in substance, good but only saved from a filler status by its wonderful keyboard atmospherics reminiscent of Soulless’ Shine In Purity²⁰²⁰. With respect to quality, the best tracks outside of “Decay Of Emotion” are the opening 1, 2 “Frozen Tomb” – where we first feel the weight of the (nearly 10 minutes) length but here slightly less justified than on the aforementioned favorite, the song most akin to Emptiness, almost like a rite of passage between the two records despite the 5 year gap in between – and “The Depths” – probably the best written song on the album – all of which accounts for the first half towering above the second, with that least favorite “In Silence” unfortunately opening that second half and only slightly redeeming it by “On The Edge Of Sanity” which segues into the excellent closer “First Of October” (you counted right, only 6 tracks total), a song that wonderfully and expertly plays with building the momentum using one instrument at a time, including Anni Viljanen’s beautiful ethereal cleans that slowly grow aware of the mercilessly impending doom of an conclusion.

While not the best creation of Moilanen & Co. October Decay does deserve your attention for its unnerving atmosphere that always threatens full blown despair but equally always manages to escape it. The similarity in title to Type O’Negative’s classic October Rust¹⁹⁹⁷ is far from accidental, considering how many times it made me think of it whenever I communed with Red Moon Architect’s 6th full length, nor is the equal similarity of the cover to Swallow The Sun’s fantastic debut The Morning Never Came²⁰⁰³ lost on me for the same reasons. That both original bands were/are better songwriters is another story beyond the scope of this exposition.