Album Review: Moonbell- Afterlives
For some reason, I’ve been really putting off reviewing this
new Moonbell LP, Afterlives. It’s
been out for a minute here, and I usually try to be a little more punctual
about things around this place than letting something like this go for roughly
a month.
I also maybe have a bit of a bad association (personally)
with Moonbell—which I should maybe get over or at least just “deal with it”
like that Internet meme would want me to. Their last effort, a self-titled
compilation released by Deep Space Recordings, that collected two EPs, was
released on the day my best friend passed away. So whenever I think of
Moonbell, I think of that.
Anyway…
I really hate describing a record as “a grower,” but Afterlives is a record that you need to
spend time with. It’s short, but it’s not fast paced, though the songs are
exponentially more concise and focused in comparison to the group’s older
material. Hailing from San Francisco, Moonbell are one of many bands that tout
a version of what I’ve come to call the “nugaze” sound—bands that owe a lot to
their copies of Loveless or Nowhere, but are also clever enough to
not be derivative of their influences.
Moonbell pile on very heavy reverb throughout Afterlives—it’s practically on every
instrument, creating a rather hazy, woozy sound—the haziest arriving in the
form of the long, cascading echoes of “Million One.” And rather than relying on
pedal-driven feedback theatricality, the band injects some psychedelic vibes
this time around, much more so than on their self-titled collection, as well as
a very loose, ramshackle feeling—which is something you don’t normally hear on
a shoegaze record. Kind of like a less abrasive and confrontational version of
the first A Place to Bury Strangers LP—back when they were super brash and didn’t
take themselves too seriously.
Afterlives starts
out strong with the very brief opening song: the shimmery “Never Seems,” before
moving into the dreamy title track. Then later, it’s Verve-esq drugged-out
psychedelics on the very punny “Fashion Weak.” Many of the tracks on the LP
work back and forth between driving post-punky bass lines, with an emphasis on
a strong rhythm, and a more “traditional” dream pop, shoegaze jangle.
There are moments here where Moonbell doesn’t so much sound
like a different band when compared to their earlier work from the self-titled
compilation, but the songs on Afterlives
are all far less dense, and therefore much less daunting at times—something
that has to do with the production aesthetic.
Here, there is a very rough, unpolished sound, which was not
the case before; the brevity of these songs, also, gives the album a different
feeling, as it both hurts and helps. There are moments when a song seems like
it ends too quickly—like these may be more sketches than fully-fledged tracks.
There are many songs on Afterlives
that maintain a pop sensibility, making it a rather accessible listen. It
helps, obviously, if you have an affinity for shoegaze, or any of its theoretical
genre counterparts and offshoots.
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