The Moon City Masters – Everybody
Rock fans, I have to tell you, are just the same as every other fandom when they are congregating and sharing opinions. And just like everybody else, while they enjoy sharing the things they like, they love complaining about the things that they hate.
This impression is amplified by the fans who also happen to have a particular admiration for styles, techniques and sounds that haven’t exactly been in vogue for a long time. This, in itself, in their minds, proves the fact that life is just a little bit worse than it used to be.
Well, you can just accept this as the truth, or you can do something about it. What about, really, doing the work to make sure that there’s nothing you’ve missed, that there aren’t things that prove the world is actually improving? For fans of prog-rock, The Moon City Masters may deliver just that.
What do you hear when you listen to the single “Everybody”? Hope! Yeah, you also hear a lot of Rush-inspired sounds that include virtuoso playing, sophisticated arrangements, and fantasy-driven storytelling. But what sets The Moon City Masters apart from, even other contemporary prog-rockers, is the lightheartedness of the whole affair. This is music that requires a lot of effort to put together, but it’s a celebratory sound.
Oh Doom! – How To Destroy Anything
Everyone’s got problems, sure. But the trouble is that everyone else feels entitled to describe them over coffee, or when you meet them on the subway. Even worse, most of these problems aren’t really problems; they’re just minute predicaments.
It’s a generalised pessimism that really ruins the respectability of opening up about an actual personal disaster. When nearly everyone you meet wants to tell you how bad the morning news made them feel, genuine misery starts to be worth very little.
Still, art, if it has any role at all, is to remind us of the things that truly matter. It’s these things that we forget about as we try to sharpen our routine. And, more than any art form, modern music is the gateway toward the things that hurt most. Oh Doom! make music about issues that are nearly impossible to overcome, and the one single solution that’s available.
It’s nothing that a little talking won’t solve. However, “How To Destroy Anything” with its complex post-rock arrangement and alt-rock tension, feels like the soundtrack to trying to wrap your mind around a problem and then getting the problem to spin around your mind forever. It’s the song about making yourself your own enemy. It’s no minor complaint. You hear it, and it’s hard not to get emotional and want to call your best friend on the phone.
