Moonshine is an atmospherical black metal band that hails from Korea’s capitol city Seoul. Most bands from Korea operate from this city (with more than 10 million people out of almost 50 million people), though rock bands are very scarce. The band was founded by Amon and Giga under the name Deathrasher and released three demos (two in 1993, another in 1994). They started out playing some sort of grindcore, being ‘machine gun beat junkies’ according to themselves. After a line-up change in 1996 they renamed their band Moonshine, a name as original as the first one. They wanted to play more serious music. After that, they’ve released another two demos (in 1996 and 1997) and have produced two full-lengths: “Wake Up the Moon” (2001) and “Songs of Requiem”.

“Songs of Requiem” is a creation of ‘mainstream’ melodic black metal with a clear production and almost no interesting parts.

I recognize elements from other melodic (black) metal bands, for example Rotting Christ, Embraced, Bal Sagoth, Old Man’s Child and The Kovenant, to name a few. The music is quite well played and easy to listen to, but lacks the emotional hateful atmosphere a true black metal band is expected to create. In another thought, the music DOES create a hateful feeling. Several melodic parts annoy me deeply in almost every song. The music is interesting enough when keeping in mind the band is from Korea, even though it is very unoriginal. They could make it more original by experimenting more, perhaps by adding some Korean elements to it (though I have no clue how that will sound like and I doubt it will sound any better).