Let’s be honest, when a band describes the music they make as “experimental” it’s just a cop-out defense mechanism in case someone thinks they suck, they have a ready made excuse handy. An “experiment” in music would be just that: making odd sounding music by throwing all sorts of ideas, good, bad, or neutral, at a canvas to see what sticks and what doesn’t. Revolver by The Beatles could be a good example of an experimental pop record. Spoiler alert: Moon Duo’s Shadow Of The Sun is NOT Revolver and Moon Duo just may need that ready made excuse to be very handy.
Moon Duo is a side project from the guitarist of Wooden Shjips (pronounced Wooden Ships) another ‘experimental’ rock group who has put out a few albums within the past ten years. The thing about Wooden Shjips is that they are actually interesting and have put out some inspired, quality hard rock over the past few years. From what I’ve heard, this side project could very well be made up from songs and ideas Wooden Shjips unanimously deemed under par and tossed them aside. That doesn’t mean that a song or idea doesn’t deserve a second chance or closer look elsewhere, there have been plenty of side projects from bands that have blossomed into something special (The Rentals, The Breeders, Epic Ditch, Tweedy all come to mind), but perhaps some things need to stay in the dump bin.
Shadow Of The Sun starts out with some promise. The opening track “Wilding” with it’s droning, two chord dirge, mysterious pouted lyrics, and hypnotic drum and bass loop, sort of reminds me of a less charismatic modern retelling of The Door’s “L.A. Woman,” but after about three minutes, that promise dwindles away into boredom and the record never really recovers. Next up we have the appropriately titled “Night Beat” that drones on with the same bpms as the previously track (and arguably the seven tracks after it) that reminds me more of falling asleep at the wheel in the middle of night driving than it resembles anything pleasing to the human ear.
I know it must sound so hypocritical of me to make these claims of boredom about Shadow Of The Sun in a negative sense, when just recently I reviewed Fortune by Damon & Naomi and gave it praises for being background music that made me reflect on anything other than listening to it, but at least that album had some beautiful, calming artistry to it. This album is lacking charisma of any kind. It’s just one note over and over that makes me check to see if I’ve somehow put a song on repeat.
I don’t want to sound like a broken record, bashing the relatively Moon Duo into submission without giving them a chance to grow into something more, but from start to finish, Shadow Of The Sun is just boring blips and bleeps placed on top of one chord bass loops, whispered distorted vocals, and uninspired guitar noodling, thrown together and passed off as an album. Oh wait, it’s “experimental” though right? That means I’m not really allowed to say that it’s a terrible mess, because it’s all just an experiment after all. Well let’s play devil’s advocate here for a minute and ask the question, what exactly is the experiment? How many five minute, medium tempo, 120 bpm, jams they could fit into one record and see how many people will consider it an actual album rather than an exercise in soulless electronic music 101?
All in all, Shadow Of The Sun isn’t the worst album I’ve ever heard,”Wilding” is kinda cool with it’s Doors-esque vibe, and but even after a couple back-to-back listens, I can’t decipher any other song from each other from memory. Seriously, you could put the tracklist on shuffle and skip to any random point in any song, and you will get the same result. It’s like every single song is in the same key, tempo, and structure. One boring ol’ song after another. I know Moon Duo are creative and capable of making decent music. I’ve heard quite a bit from Wooden Shjips, but to put out something so dull, lifeless, generic, and empty, is unacceptable. Some experiments should stay just that. Experiments.
Rating: 1/5