MOAT ‘Poison Stream’ Review: Marty Willson-Piper and Niko Röhlcke cast a powerful, moody spell on first album since 2013.

Marty Willson-Piper may have left Aussie psych rock legends The Church back in 2013, but he’s more than kept busy since, from his work with German prog-rockers Anekdoten, musical project Noctorum, and his own prolific solo career.

Willson-Piper is also one half of the musical duo MOAT, who have just released Poison Stream, their second studio album (via Schoolkids Records).

The album kicks off with Acid Rain, a spritely jangle pop number that conjures images of a hillside road drenched in mist, while Röhlcke (Weeping Willows) provides pulsating soundscapes and skittering electronics.

Gone By Noon’s gorgeous melody sounds like a theme song from some lost 1960’s drama, while the winding, serpentine melody Helpless You conjures evokes The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby, with Willson-Piper’s evocative lyrics gets vampiric:

You’re locking all the doors
As you sharpen your claws
And your eyes turn red
As you feed on the dead

The Ballad of Sweet Marie is a English folk ballad of the first order, its waltz-tempo arrangement augmented by accordion and soothing female backing vocals, while Willson-Piper’s ambling vocal delivery evokes classic Leonard Cohen.

The Roadmap to My Soul is another standout, featuring a soulful Motown style melody, eventually erupting into an incendiary knife-fight between blistering guitar solo and frantic horns.

The album’s press release states: If you enjoy thoughtful Anglo-Scandinavian-bent folk-pop with lyrical twists and turns, the occasional experiment and a timeless modern soundtrack to the past, then this may be the album for you.

This should be no surprise given Röhlcke’s work in film composition, but if there was one word to describe Poison Stream it would be cinematic, from the James Bond theme like melody in Judgement Day to the melodramatic melody of Lover. 

And it’s the fusion between Willson-Piper’s glistening 12-string melodies and Röhlcke’s Technicolor sonic vistas that makes the album such a bewitching listen.

Much like John Carpenter’s recent album Lost Themes 3, Poison Stream is the perfect album for inner reflection, allowing their aural powers to create cinema for the mind. In a time where we’re cocooned in our homes, it makes for sublime escapism.