In This Moment Is Bad In a Bad Way

Well kids, if ever there was a soundtrack song to the worst nightmare you'll ever have it's "Big Bad Wolf" the insomnia prompting wonder from LA's In This Moment. In this moment you'd better sleep with the lights on. Why is that you ask? Turn off the lights for a split second, then close your eyes and maybe, just maybe this horror show will infiltrate your dream world. The accompanying video looks like it was snatched straight out of the apocalypse. What...the...f--k!! I doubt Marilyn Manson would go quite this far. This here's a line that's been crossed, defecated on, and, for good measure, urinated upon. Maria Brink succeeds in grabbing all the attention she can scrounge. I don't quite know what to label her chips, dips, chains, whips fest but she could use the same Thorazine Dr. Venkman gave Dana in Ghostbusters. Not that "Big Bad Wolf" lacks musical sensibilities. What galls me is said sensibilities slap across the canvas fingerpaint style. It's gritty within an inch of its chainsaw subtle life. Maria's in eight levels of agony, none of them reassuring in the least, Whether screaming, writhing, or being led around by chains, Maria looks to be holding on by the thinnest of threads. Chris Howorth's abrasive lead guitar does nothing to settle the churn within. Here we have a metallic beauty that goes heavy into shock but comes up short on well-defined technical chops. In This Moment is 10 years into its career. You'd think overwrought sexually supercharged theatrics like this would be something of a rookie angle to get people's attention. Guys, hate to break it to you but any band that can sustain a career of a decade plus should consider itself lucky to even be employed in the medium. There'd be greater respect if the band didn't play the dominatrix card so shamelessly, It's true that sex sells. Always has, always will. But I don't think the intent behind "Big Bad Wolf" was to frighten people out of the moat remote urge to copulate. Too much face time with Maria in the video getup could do that to a person unintentionally. Couldn't even understand the lyrics so, thank you various lyric Cribb notes for helping to keep me too far away from blind leading the blind territory. The Three Little Pigs story factors in somehow but not before Maria, defying any lucid logic, screams four times, "Even in these chains you can't stop. Can't tell if the pig's protesting being the wolf's next meal or if Maria's trying to wake us all up as jarring;y as possible. Anyway she unfolds the classic nursery rhyme in such a fashion that Marge Simpson would likely utter, "I'll never look at that story the same way again. Nothing's sacred apparently. Book open to the uncensored version she said, "Once upon a time there was a nasty little piggy filled with pride and greed (insert Donald Trump campaign joke here). Once upon a time there was an evil little piggy typical disease. You see this little pig is slowly becoming my own worst enemy. You see this evil pig she's a blood, blood sucking part of me." How appealingly innocent...or would that be appallingly innocent. Travis Johnson uses his bass playing to crank up the goosebump factor as does Tom Hane on drums. Maria's mind-blowingly versatile. She do writhing, controlled rage, and overt hostility in one fell swoop. Lots of huff and puff but, for all that hyper dramatization, "Big Bad Wolf" doesn't blow my door down or knock my whiter than white socks off. Hope the minions in the video got paid greater than scale wages or else pig in a blanket could be all they're consuming for a little while. In This Moment's moment in the rock sun could be going, going, gone. Heightened heft for the next single would be welcomed. Wouldn't want "Black Widow", the album from whence "Big Bad Wolf" came to prove a prophetic image as it pertains to the outfit's future prospects.