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Moon Mountain

White City

Written by: BV on 03/11/2014 20:22:21

Moon Mountain is a band that I, despite believing to be quite well-acquainted with the Danish psych scene, had heard very little about before receiving their debut EP, ”White City”, as a promo for review. From what I gather, the band resides somewhat in the more post-punk, new wave and folk influenced end of the psychedelic sonic territory, placing an emphasis on the chilling vocals and a repetitive, trance-inducing soundscape.

Opening with “Daddy’s Angry Now”, the hypnosis is effectively in place. The simple chord progression instantly takes hold in one’s consciousness and the repetitive rhythmical figure makes damn well sure that your mind sticks to it. With a blend of mellow mumbling, chilling screeching and soaring, high-pitched vocal work the melodic side is all but easy listening. It is alluring, entrancing and utterly fascinating – but it is also of the sort that people with very low thresholds of patience or limited attention spans would quickly deem uninteresting. “Let it Burn”, on the other hand, follows a slightly more folk-tinged approach that is instantly more accessible than the preceding “Daddy’s Angry Now”. It portrays the multifaceted sonic palette of Moon Mountain which, to be honest, is really quite promising. The vocals are, as one would expect, the center of the soundscape and are perhaps at their most alluring on this track. Backed only by a simple acoustic guitar, the sparse instrumentation proves that the songwriting of Moon Mountain can work on several levels – both the levels of total sonic onslaught as provided in the title track, as well as the mellow, moody excursions of “Let it Burn” and “Down to the Wire”.

If there is one thing I seem to be missing from Moon Mountain, it would perhaps be songs with a more immediate focus. I have an unnatural fondness for slow burners like the “Down to the Wire” and “White City” – both of which exceed the five-minute mark, but I could easily imagine others not being quite as please with the space they take up on a five-track EP. Granted, the slow-burning, slightly haunting musical vision of Moon Mountain is what makes them fascinating in the first place, but I don’t believe the inclusion of other, shorter and more concise tracks would denote the key values of the band one bit. Perhaps they would appeal to a wider audience if they did. Either way, the promise is there – from the songwriting to the musicianship. Next stop is to distill it into an entirely alluring full-length. We’ll see how Moon Mountain progress from here.

Download: Down to the Wire, Let it Burn, Release the Sins
For The Fans Of: The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Sonic Youth, Spökraket
Listen: facebook.com

Release date 13.10.2014
Future City Devil’s Island