Review Summary: From the anti-folk scene to the big screen, The Moldy Peaches have delivered awkward lullaby's to challenge the normality of music.
Sometimes you come across a band or piece of artwork that is complex and puzzling, where you find it ultimately difficult to describe it and classify it. We as humans often tend to group together everything that we encounter in a sense to rationalize and organize it. But every now and then you come across some form of art that makes you want to demolish your rationality and just go with the flow of life.
When I first heard
The Moldy Peaches self titled album it took me awhile to understand what the album was trying to convey, what message it was sending off. I first thought, there's no message what so ever; that this album was developed as a nihilistic joke to play upon any indie folk fans who happened to download or pick up this album. Although I was disappointed in this early misunderstanding of
The Moldy Peaches, I thought the music was quaint and flavorful so I continued to listen. Songs such as "Anyone Else (But You)" and "Nothing Came Out" are so cleverly calming and relaxing you can visualize yourself looking out into the rain on a cold November morning or take a road trip across the US and having these songs play as a melodic background to your ventures. When I came across that first visualization of how these songs can relate to our lives, is when it hit me. There's no nihilistic joke being played with
The Moldy Peaches, it's something a bit deeper with a real life connection. They play the pun with their music, mock themselves, mock the culture that indie artists and fans live in and genuinely make the connection of themselves to where they are and how they live. This is where I believe
The Moldy Peaches are unique, as is their genre of Anti Folk, which molded, shifted and morphed throughout the years of exposure.
Fans of folk and indie will be hard pressed not enjoy the subtle and sometimes not so subtle music of
The Moldy Peaches. While sometimes being so calm and passive the music can turn aggressive, but never violent, as seen in the song
Downloading Porn With Davo and
NYC's Like a Graveyard which bleeds influence from old school punk. Along side their anti-esoteric sensibilities, they also are politically influenced challenging the situations in life which humans have already became situated to.
This album produces nothing short of genius, the lack of complexity and simplism in the music provides genuine songwriting when compared to the lack of songwriting in many of today's technically proficient music. I gave this album a 5/5 for reasons stated above. Few groups can provide uniqueness to a genre derived on uniqueness but
The Moldy Peaches have done it.
