Mothica
Kissing Death – Heavy Heart Records/Rise Records
It is undeniable that difficult times make for great art and if proof were required we need look no further than Mothica. Drawing deeply from personal battles with mental health and addiction, alongside experiences with assault and domestic abuse, music has become a kind of therapy for Mothica. Album number three, Kissing Death,finds her dancing with the Reaper to deliver a deliciously dark record and opening track ‘The Void’ immediately entices us into her inky black world. This is the sound of an artist bravely baring her soul to the world and as such it becomes a little uncomfortable peering into the vulnerable nature of ‘Doomed’; but then again, good art should always make you feel a little uneasy. No matter how far Mothica veers towards the dark side, there’s no denying the pure pop sensibility of songs such as ‘Mirage’, but even at her most effervescent there’s always a weight, a discombobulation bubbling beneath, to act as a tether. Yet, rather than being a treatise on one’s demise, Kissing Death is a life-affirming affair, a redemption through music, and it finds Mothica bursting from a chrysalis, moving towards the flame and ready to take on the world.
Review By Peter Dennis.