New Moons - Blood in the Waves

Ohio band, New Moons play rock of the straight-ahead kind. Perhaps with a smidgen of hard psych. While many might turn away from that description, lest it indicates something unoriginal, any rock music delivered with the right combination of bombast, panache and songwriting clout can make you see outside your musical prism. This is trucked out exactly that way, as if what used to be coyly described as ‘alternative rock’ in the 90's was bred meticulously into these guys, one DNA strand at a time. Think Pearl Jam, Bob Mould, Soundgarden or Screaming Trees with a bit of Ian Astbury thrown in for good measure.

The intrinsic promise of ‘You Want It, You Got It’ is one few bands can deliver on, but here New Moons get the formula just right, with top drawer hooks, guitars that chime and crunch in equal measure, and vocal delivery which shows a serious commitment to the notion of front-man charisma. There’s no way those vocals are getting buried in the mix.

The next best thing on the 4 track EP is the title track 'Blood In The Waves', which has a classic rock template giving ascendancy to all of the band's strengths, rapacious singing, crackling guitar, hyperactive and exuberant drumming. If the remaining two tracks were that impressive, I might have scored this higher, but ‘Creature’ for instance is a little repetitious, and ‘Go’ just doesn’t have the finishing touch of the best stuff on the EP.

This is on iTunes but don't do what I did, and ask Siri for New Moons unless you want some soppy meditation music.