Moon Machine. From an American perspective, that’s got to bring to mind the 11 space flights of the Apollo programme, the impressive Lunar Excursion Module and the enormous Saturn rockets that helped propel astronauts to the moon. An engineering challenge of incomprehensible scale and complexity. The studio-based band whose debut LP bears this name hail from Boston, Massachusetts and seem also to have a lot more to them than meets the eye.
Composed of multi-instrumentalist and producer, frontman Eric Hochwald who dabbles in psych rock (We Are Space Horses) and shoegaze (Luxury Deathtrap), Angel Costello on drums (who also plays the mandolin and is part of metal band Between Skies) and Jonathan Sirota (Keyboards) who has also recorded with alt rockers Old Fox, Moon Machine formed from the implosion of their previous pop-fusion group Space Ink when they realised they, em… gravitated towards heavier sounds. In a recent interview, for Progsphere, Hochwald suggested that Moon Machine just wanted to create music that people other than their own parents might listen to. Those are lofty ambitions. From the sound of it, with all these cosmic references and cross-genre influences I suspect that it’s going to get a lot deeper than that. There’s another space joke there somewhere and, in space, no-one can hear your protests.
I notice that while there are only seven songs on the album, it still amounts to over forty minutes of music when almost every track is over five minutes long. We enter via ‘Cave’ which is brighter than you might expect given the name. Synth married with flowing, dreamy vocals evokes the experience of floating in and out of reality, as you emerge from a drugged, medicated state to face the fact that you can’t have the comfort of home, you can’t have that person or situation that you desire. The song rises and falls in waves of elation and frustration and includes a beautiful melancholic keyboard break towards the end before the rousing finale that signals freedom. An unexpected, but impressive start.
Ominous and riff-heavy, ‘Reckoning’ follows on. Changing tack in theme quite dramatically, this is a song about a war criminal. Given this information, again it doesn’t progress as you might expect. The opening verse talks of a God who waits patiently for the warlords’ time to come. To exact retribution you might assume but as the story winds on we find instead understanding for the ‘Punisher of the righteous’. A floaty and wholly unexpected acoustic section asks forgiveness for the soul destroyed by misfortune and hardship. Both musically and lyrically the switch feels at odds, and I suspect that was intentional as Moon Machine wants you to walk the path less travelled. Forgiveness and understanding is harder than revenge. Told you this was going to get deep, but it is also unexpectedly meaningful.
Which seems like a good point to mention that the sales of ‘Moon Machine’ are intended to go to social causes. As Hochwald explains on the band’s Facebook page, all proceeds from the album sale go to Mental Health America, a community-based charity supporting the needs of those with mental illness and promoting positive mental health for all. Moon Machine are acutely aware of the increased mental health issues in the millennial generation. With this in mind Hochwald bemoans how much of a pain in the ass vinyl is as he waves a box of CDs that he bought at the camera inviting the ‘’hipsters who still have CD players’’ to buy them. I was going to say he’s right, you can’t play a record in the car. Then I realized you can’t play a CD in the car either. Oh well.
Anyway, the longest track on the album ‘Demon05’ begins with languid melodic guitar and progresses ominously and unhurried through an epic eight-minute landscape, intensity building along the way to a screaming crescendo. Then ‘Left To Wander’ gently guides you away from the horror. The opening keyboard melody is soothing but the tale is a sad one about lacking direction or purpose. Notable about this track are the extended soulful guitar solos.
The last part of the album is dedicated to a three-part concept that revolves around an AI character. Part one ‘Post-Upgrade 1 – Discovery’ is spacey yet engaging as it’s many crescendos suggest an awakening, although one that ends abruptly and leads directly into rockier ‘Post-Upgrade 2 – Grief’. Here the character considers the greater meaning of their life before the end. ‘Post-Upgrade 3 – Requiem’ is remembrance of what was and sounds almost like a sermon. It morphs into electronic sounds suggestive of memories before it abruptly cuts off, like someone has pulled the plug.
The inclusion of this story at the end of the album wasn’t planned, although it covers themes that the band have previously spoken about, including the modern need for technology, the untold impact that new technology can have and the fear and adjustment that comes along with that. No, we do not really want to know what Artificial Intelligence makes of music, but we will know one day. It’s an inevitability. In relation to mental health,sometimes modern life is so difficult, but it is often ourselves, the flow of our own inner thoughts and feelings that is the hardest thing to deal with.
When I read the promo material for Moon Machine, I wondered if Mind Eraser PR were losing theirs a bit as they tried to explain the style. Maybe it’s because, like the philosophers who blended ideas from different fields together instead of staying in their own field with the other sheep, Moon Machine in this, their original form, are eclectic and won’t be constrained. You are going to hear prog-rock to some extent and there are also heavier sections, beautiful soulful vocals and lightweight dreamy melodies. Moon Machine are hard to describe. I’ll go with multi-instrumental, genre hopping proper musicians.
Unfortunately, they probably need to find more of a direction going forward, if indeed they intend to take the project forward, given their many other commitments. Despite that, I’d say they’ve achieved what they set out to achieve at this stage of their journey. They’ve created progressive rock that steers away from the lighter edge. An intricate, multi-layered and impressive album that definitely qualifies as deep, and ultimately as music that people other than their parents will enjoy. Tick that box guys.
- ‘Moon Machine’ is released on 30 July. You can get your copy HERE.
www.facebook.com/MoonMachinemusic/
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.