Most rock music is forged from sharp edges, staccato riffs, razor-wire guitars, and sonorous beats. But smooth those edges off, use musical drifts and sonic washes to counter that abrasiveness, use hush and harmony instead of volume and velocity to create your impact, and you get something more enjoyable, not to mention interesting, altogether.
Such a move takes us into the realms of shoegaze, or, in its more subdued moments, dream-pop, or at least to a place where alternative rock becomes more considered and intelligent, expressive and truly artistic. Whatever you wish to call it, it is what we find Moon Cowboy on their latest release “Baby Jane.”
Although built from rock elements and more powerful urges, the sonic canopy that is draped over them makes the difference. Guitars seem distant and resonant rather than sharp and aggressive, the drums direct rather than drive, and bass lines are propulsive rather than pounding.
It is the difference between grace and grit, grandeur and mere groove, although groove this track surely does. It is knowing that melody is more important than muscle, that poignacy and poise outrank power, at least power for the sake of it. And it is the difference between beauty and bombast, deftness and merely driving a song to its logical conclusion.
Fashion in rock music comes and goes with frightening speed and fickleness. Music made in these liminal spaces, no matter what you want to call it – dream-pop, shoegaze or something else entirely – endures.
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