Review Summary: How's the water? What the hell is water?
Lo Moon have returned, in a much quicker fashion (considering the four-year gap between their debut and sophomore album), with their third full-length release. The pandemic continues to scar the psyche of artists everywhere as this album is a product of Matt Lowell’s (Lo Moon’s principal songwriter) return to his home state of Connecticut to find some solace in the place he discovered his love for music.
The themes here extend from their second album, with Lowell bemoaning a diminishing set of options from the myriad of tributaries and bridges of promise that stretched out before him in his youth. There’s also a sort of recurring bitterness at the way friends are leaving him behind and simultaneously being left behind as he pursues a dream doubling as a career. This album expands more on the emotions of when the world was new, with numerous references to a David Foster Wallace speech Lowell has internalised and even quoted in the album title.
The album splits the difference between the spacious, Talk Talk worshipping debut and the tighter second outing. It lacks some of the dynamic punch of 2018’s self-titled release and doesn’t have as many memorable hooks as the 2022’s
A Modern Life, but there are new peeks in the window on the reference front – this one is a bit more Peter Gabriel, a bit more Simple Minds, a bit grander. Single ‘Water’ is almost like a delicate revision of something like Gabriel’s ‘Solsbury Hill’, with a bounce in the verse that then gives way to Lo Moon’s style, a gorgeous pillow of elegant melody before sliding back into the pep of the refrain. ‘Day Old News’ is probably the most unlikely Lo Moon song, wearing trappings that are almost reminiscent of a country outing, but still firmly in the soft pop arena. It’s a great sleight of hand and something I’d like to see them explore in the future.
When they return to the space and relaxed pacing that defined their early sound, the results are mixed – the first four tracks return to this blueprint in different ways. ‘Waiting a Lifetime’ is the most propulsive and uses the driving drum track and more aggressive bassline to create tension. The song is gorgeous and resolves with a beautiful tunnel of guitar swirl to encase and complete it. ‘Borrowed Hills’ goes for a massive anthem and gets there. ‘Connecticut’ combines these approaches, and ‘When the Kids Are Gone’ slows things down and layers more sophistication into the final run to build the track.
The final stretch of the album from ‘Mary in the Woods’ falters a little – still loaded with beautiful moments but without the mastery of dynamic shift they showed on their debut. I long for that approach to distinguish the closing run from the opening. Depending on the order you listened to this though, you might prefer the late phase change of ‘Evidence’ to ‘Connecticut’. I'm nitpicking as the record as a whole is remarkably cohesive, and Lo Moon have yet to release anything but excellence.
