Chicago's Moontype are not a band I'm familiar with. I have Darren Jones, regular supporter of this blog, for pointing me in their direction. I'm suitably grateful. They're pretty excellent. A cool mixture of the familiar and the new. Indie in essence and reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine, Stereolab, Moonshake, Lush and the roll call of usual suspects, but possessing a sound they have every right to call their own.
Debut album Bodies of Water finds them skating these iced over alternative ponds with grace and conviction. No keeling over and scraping your knees from this trio. No unecessary risks are taken and they pretty much pull off everything they attempt. The record is all shiny surfaces and neat chord changes. They're definite medal contenders.
One of the most impressive characteristics of the band and their album is just how calm and assured they and it is throughout. They don't show off or do anything particularly flashy but there are all kinds of moments when they make you turn your head or sit up in your seat by their ability to twist the familiar into unfamiliar shapes.
I think I could make a reasonable guess at the records in the Moontype collection. They seem to have a particular affinity for the year 1990, perhaps the height of the first Moontype wave when MBV, Ride, Slowdive, Lush, Pale Saints, Moose, Chapterhouse had their moment in the sun and were subject to a fair amount of quite undeserved ridicule it should not be forgotten.
No one's laughing now. Slowdive have achieved virtually divine status in the intervening years and it's certainly possible to hear their influence on Bodies of Water alongside that of their Home Counties contemporaries.
Very occasionally Moontype digress into slightly showy embellishments but for the most part they stick to the Shoegaze script. The record is never dull. There's plenty of variety on show. While it's certainly no classic, there's plenty of time for that. This will more than do for now.
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