Moments In Grace
Moonlight Survived
Salad Days / Atlantic Records
Often, new bands come out ripe with a new single, a credible singer and a pop anthem that sets the charts ablaze, but little else. A year later and where are they? What hasn’t been copied, cut and re-created over and again under another name? That said, I dig what I’m hearing with Moments In Grace – so much so that I had to write about ‘em. Already compared to big selling impression builders like Thrice, Thursday, The Movielife and Hot Water Music, Moonlight Survived captures elements of all of the above. It is an emotionally inspired work that’s guitar rock at its core, soulful and mature (and thus emo?) and the perfect production blend of spit and polish.
The album, right from the opening moments of the first track to the emotional mellowness of “The Past” at the close, is a winner in every way. What yesterday’s heroes like Cheap Trick, U2 and The Police had that so many of today’s over-analyzed tail-riders are missing is the ability to craft good songs. Too many albums with too many songs and not enough attention to detail. Where’s that pleasing distinction from song to song to tell the listener they didn’t spend all that money just to hear the radio track and maybe one or two more before shelving it and forgetting?
Moonlight Survived is a complete album that employs rugged guitar strides tempered with smooth melodies, sharp hooks and anthemic verses that carry a tune’s ability to go further than fast-forward and forget. Vocalist Jeremy Griffith is a true singer who swoons, soars and centers himself within the song context without over-striding. In a crowded scene of singers who are part-time crooners and caged lions, his range and delivery is a step beyond most.
From the opening moments of “Stratus,” with its palpably soaring dynamic, to the edginess of “The Patient,” the emotive contrasts of the haunting hypnotic “Distant and Longing Light” and metallic strains of “The Blurring Lines of Loss,” to the power lines themselves in the foreground of the front cover’s dark sky, Moonlight Survived is a complete package and a winner in every way.
Moments In Grace: http://www.momentsingrace.com
