Ahead of next year’s release of his new album, Wild Rice, Chicago-based rock and roller, Leon Frear gives us the single “Secret Second Moon” to tide us over. And what a great song it is, sitting somewhere between old-school rock and roll and contemporary alternative sounds, but, as he has explained, it is to the past he looks, if not for the sound of the song but certainly its reticent vibes.
Writing the album while listening to albums by artists such as Leonard Cohen, Harvest by Neil Young, Stories from the City by PJ Harvey and a lot of old Nick Cave ballads, he attempted to capture the same lived-in and world-weary sound, and if “Secret Second Moon” is anything to go on, he has done so, and done so brilliantly.
It’s an intriguing sound, part new wave friction, part early rock and roll spaciousness, and lyrically part profundity, part pathos, half wit, half wisdom. It’s a bit like if Elvis Costello wasn’t the product of post-punk Britain but perhaps got his break in 50’s Cleveland!
But Frear is nothing if not his own man, his is a singular, signature sound and if the rest of the forthcoming album is a patch on this single, then 2024 will be off to a great start.
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