New York – Last year Canterbury’s Moose Blood’s released their EPs Boston//Orlando and Moving Home. The releases came only a year after the band formed and showcased such potential for young act. In only a few tracks Moose Blood breathed new life into the emo genre. Next they released their debut full length I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time to Time which continues the trend of high energy, hyperpersonal songs and hints at a promising career for the UK band.
Two of the strongest tracks from the EPs, “Bukowski” and “Boston”, were included in the new album and thankfully so. The first, an obviously literary reference, overcomes the cliche of its namesake within the first few measures. The bright guitar is filled out by a cleverer-than-usual drumline. In a genre where you can kind of get away with just a hi-hat, bass drum and snare, Moose Blood drummer Glenn Harvey took no short cuts with “Bukowski.” From the first beat to the instrumental outro Harvey kept his part invent and lively without upstaging the other instruments. The other characteristic of “Bukowski” that makes it good enough to be included on not one, but two Moose Blood releases is the successful integration of pop culture references.
Cheeky mentions of authors, albums and other things make up huge part of the song and the album as a whole. Few lyricist can write the names of indie band into their song without earning themselves a series of eyerolls from their listeners, but “Bukowski” beats the odds. Somehow the band was able to name drop everyone from Jimmy Dean to Ernest Hemingway without losing our patience. Perhaps it’s the sincerity and relatability in the lyrics that makes all those references to John Cusack movies and Death Cab For Cutie songs palatable. Moose Blood references always seem to find the perfect mid-ground between mainstream and obscure, that is both ideal for attracting listeners within the genre and expanding to a larger audience.
These references bank on a certain amount of common knowledge. In “Bukowski” when Eddy Brewerton, the band’s vocalist, guitarist and primary lyricist, sings, “you make me feel like Morrissey,” he knows that even if the listener hasn’t heard the English singer or The Smiths he can count on a degree of familiarity with the name. So far this has panned out. It helps that Brewerton appears to listen to all the bands and read all the books that his typical listeners will have and thus he understands his audience. However, this common ground never feels calculated. There is the feeling that Brewerton isn’t listening to Brand New to win friends and seem cool; he’s doing it because Deja Entendu is a great album. In that way he becomes something of a reliable narrator. The references continue for the equally high energy “Kelly Kapowski” and the band gets easy points for the Saved By The Bell reference, but earns real approval with the breakdown late in the song.
The instrumentals and outros of I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time are as impressive as the real meat, the choruses of its songs. “Chin Up” has a note-worthy crunch and eerie guitar break early in the song. “Pups” and “Gum” have a similar quality to them and seem to adhere to this pattern of lyric-heavy sections cut with instrumentals in the same way that “Chin Up” does. The slow moving “I Hope You’re Miserable” has another impressive instrumental in the form of an exceptionally catchy intro that burst into the album’s angst-driven anthem.
The song, from which the record derived its name, also has the genre-appropriate overly dramatic lyrics that fixate on things like the seasons and the melancholia of a break-up. However, the band spans beyond these topics to write the more difficult, harder hitting tracks, like “Pups” and “Anyway.” The latter written about Brewerton’s mother adds a personal element to the album and wins hearts with downright sweet lines likes “I’d still sing songs on the motorway with you any day.” Listeners get an even more intimate look at Brewerton’s life with “Pups” that opens with the lyric “here’s one for my old man.” The track alludes to substance abuse in lines like “It doesn’t matter that we can’t get drunk Dad / It doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun / We can go for a couple or maybe a few / It wasn’t getting getting drunk alone it was being with you” and proves that Brewerton holds little back. Lyrically the record is dotted with mentions of mothers and fathers, making family another piece that comprises I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time to Time. Songs like “Cherry”, “I Hope You’re Missing Me” and “Boston” don’t bother with allusions or metaphors and cut straight to spelling out Brewerton recent marriage, stepdaughter and other personal details that most lyricists keep off the table.
Altogether the lyrics of I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time add up to an almost-complete picture of Brewerton’s life. These personal details are tempered with a healthy dose of pop culture for a surprisingly relatable listening experience. Not many listeners will be “twenty-three and engaged to be married” when they hear this album, but the lines that can’t be related to directly can be empathized with and herein lies the album’s strength. Listening to I’ll Keep You In Mind, From Time To Time is like reading an autobiography and finding parallels to your own life. With their debut Moose Blood has made the hypersonal relatable and the reference palatable all the while stunning listeners with intermittent instrumentals. If they continue on this trend for their next release they’re sure to see the same success.
Zoe Marquedant
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