Lo Moon know a thing or two about starting over. The Los Angeles-based quartet have been put through the music industry ringer: signed to a major label, tangled up in contracts, then forced to begin again from scratch after things went south. Their story isn’t so much rags-to-riches as rags-to-nearly-but-not-quite. But now they’re back, with a brilliant second album and plenty left to prove.
Their early music was eclectic, to say the least. On 2016’s self-titled debut, there were ambitious songs like “This is It”, with its creeping guitar notes and bold synth strokes, and the sprawling “Camouflage”, on which frontman Matt Lowell’s voice was soaked in reverb. They had noodling saxophones (“My Monday”), and propulsive, jittery dance rhythms (“Wonderful Life”). It was probably a bit much. Now they’ve pared things back for their new album A Modern Life, an exquisitely cohesive record that maintains the cinematic quality of their music – without overwhelming the listener. “Dream Never Dies” stars a delicate motif of arpeggiating piano notes, while “Expectations” makes the most of Lowell’s plaintive falsetto, amid a soaring, anthemic chorus of Springsteen-level proportions. Poignant closer “Stop” has a touch of Americana about it thanks to a dreamy slide guitar, as Lowell delivers the evocative lyrics: “Dying here with all my beliefs/ Laying crosses on the red winter leaves/ I know what I know, I need to let go.”
