Search - Sixteen Deluxe :: Moonman Is Blue

Great Band. Sorry to (I think) See Them Go.

T40T | St. Louis, MO USA | 02/17/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This ep features what believe to be their best track: "Sibhashian." It starts out quiet and simple with basic keyboard tones, then, after what sounds like a record being scratched, all hell breaks loose, at least seemingly. The thing is: under the reams of heavy and noisey (and beautiful) distortion is a very elegant song structure. In parts it even sounds like a Byrds song. That may have been at least somewhat intentional since they cover a David Crosby song on their "Vision" album. I ran an internet search on sibhashian, and discovered that Sib Hashian was the original drummer for Boston. What they share with that band is exemplary mastery of guitar sounds, all employed in support of, rather than taking over, the songs.The "Vision" album, their latest (and last?) release, on the whole, is phenomenal. It took about 4 months of heavy play for me to take it out of my machine and put in something else. Just beautiful noise. Some even call this type of music, if you absolutely have to classify it, noise pop. I think of them as somewhere between early REM (when they were good), The Breeders, Sonic Youth, and a bit like the Buzzcocks.I've only listened to the first album once and wasn't impressed. "Emits Showers of Sparks" is all fun and good, but not as wonderful as "Visions." A reason why some prefer "Visions" over "Sparks" is that "Sparks" is a bit overproduced, and "Visions," recorded in their own studio, is a bit more raw."Moonman" might not be the best place to start since about half of it is filler. Even so, the other half is phenomenal.I gave it four stars because 3 of the 6 tracks are filler material."