Boxing the Moonlight

Albumbeschreibung

Released six years after Out of Love, their self-described "doom wop" debut, indie super trio Mister Heavenly regroup with their more muscular sophomore effort, Boxing the Moonlight. Comprised of Ryan Kattner (Man Man), Nick Thorburn (Islands, the Unicorns), and Joe Plummer (the Shins, Modest Mouse), Mister Heavenly first arrived on the scene with a set of pop expectations which, a bit surprisingly, resulted in a dark-hued vamp on early rock and doo wop. For their follow-up, the band pulls from a more diverse sonic palette loosely centered around scrappy power pop with forays into synth pop, Krautrock, and even early-'90s hip-hop beats. Opener "Beat Down" is an early highlight with a pounding piano rock feel and smartly written lyrics swapped back and forth between vocalists Kattner and Thorburn. The slow-building rocker "George's Garden" is another bright spot with a propulsive feel built around a dynamically percolating synth bed. The production as a whole is uniformly bright, clean, and colorful even as the songs veer dramatically from one style to another, like the shimmering low-key synth grooves of "Crazy Love, Vol. III" that precede the blown-out fuzz of the Monks-inspired "Dead Duck," where Kattner offers a spazzy update of Gary Burger's garagey dance howls. In all, Boxing the Moonlight is a solid follow-up, offering a bit more of the variety that fans of this indie supergroup might have expected the first time around.

© Timothy Monger /TiVo