Spirit Plate - Youth Moose

Whenever I think of Brooklyn I think of quality alternative music of every way shape and sound coming out of there and hell, George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, those classical geniuses who tried to fuse high art classical music with the New York street scene came from there. Then you add in A Place to Bury Strangers, Grizzly Bear, The Dirty Projectors, etc. etc. Well, by God if you are a band saying you are from Brooklyn you better have your shit together.

Spirit Plate with their new album, Youth Moose, have their shit together.  I don’t think I’ve heard a better album come out of Brooklyn in a very long time.

If there is a better album that captures the street scene of Brooklyn any better I’ve not heard that as well.  

Youth Moose is a technicolor mish mash of rock and roll songs that sometimes are over five minutes long and filled with jangly guitars, funky beats, synths, lonesome vulnerable vocals and hip stomp lyrics and refrains.  Brian Russ is the storyteller and songwriter here and the complement of the other five members have put together one of the finest albums of 2017.

The first track, ‘All Day Long’, really throws the listener off a bit.  It’s a garage rock classic that conjures up comparisons to Exile On Main Street era Stones and Dinosaur Jr. with a little Ty Seagall when he’s on into it and I wouldn’t have been upset to follow this trail through all the tracks.

But clearly Brian Russ is a songwriter of note.  The songs after the opening track all veer off in all sorts of directions that call to mind every influence from Talking Heads to Brooklyn-based jazz and name-your-favorite jam band, all executed with a serious attention to retaining all the jagged edges they are shooting for.

Youth Moose has the same sort of impact of pleasantly melting away any category to put it in much like a Parquet Courts album.  Mr. Russ’s band is a band to be reckoned with and Youth Moose is a must have for alternative listeners wanting to latch on to a new quality rock and roll band.