Los Angles band Split Moon has released a new “dark dream gaze” style album with lush production and a trilogy of music videos to go along with it. The album starts off with a nice little palate cleanser intro, “Speak the Sky.” The record has a few interludes like this providing a break between long conceptual songs, ending with “Everything Ends.” The album starts and ends with these “musical bookends.”
The album explodes with the song, “More Clouds,” with accompanying video showing a bird’s eye view of frozen ice landscapes and water. The video reflects the dynamic changes heard in the music, and the simple concept captures the blurred sonic landscape vibes of the song. A wall of reverberated distorted guitar wraps the listener in its world. The ending of the song softens, as we are lifted into space with a space shuttle launch, leaving the metaphorical orbit of earth, and into the long music wavelengths of space.
On the next song, we pick up floating in space, leading to a more washed-out sound on this song, while capturing a Jesus and Mary chain or Spacemen 3 type lyrical angst. This song is over nine minutes long, as most of the songs on the album also take you to an extended tonal place and then keep you there for a while. It’s easy to get lost in this album. The middle of the song has an unhinged guitar solo, with distorted tones ringing out over the driving drum and bass line.
“French Homes” is more of a straightforward pop song with a nice distorted crunch on the chorus section. We are treated to another more unhinged guitar solo as well in the middle, contrasting the lighter vibe of the first verse. A wave of distortion takes over the listener, slowly rising in intensity before the end.
“Drifting Through” also has an accompany “mirrored sky” video with similar themes, and vibes, of orbiting in space and seeing the world from a birds-eye view. The visuals for these videos could almost be the backdrop for the band when they play live, evoking calming landscapes. The lyrics seem to be referencing one’s shadow work, and the ability to perhaps “drift though” a personal solar eclipse.
“Fall Without Fading” is a driving rock song with less distortion starting off, but building in different directions similar to the other longer main tracks on the album. The song also has a video, completing the “Trilogy” of videos to showcase the main tracks on the album.
Closing out the album is this epic song “Walking Dream.” The pulsating drum tom toms create a sense of dread. This is “dark gaze” at its finest, distorted and dense, giving no sense of hope in the chaos of swirling sounds, with a hint of the Jesus and Mary chain in the vocal delivery. Overall, this is a pretty solid release from Split Moon, and I would be interested in hearing these songs played live to contrast with these studio versions. I look forward to seeing them on the tour for this album
Social Media:
https://splitmoon.bandcamp.com/album/more-clouds-more-stars
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