Album Review: Half Moon Run – 'A Blemish In The Great Light'
Canadian multi-instrumentalists Half Moon Run make music for pine trees. Heavy scented guitar grow dense and constructively beside a built for purpose and purposefully built bed of folk-rock flora that is as percussively plentiful as it’s vital - if this were anymore naturalist we’d all be standing on top of mountains with our shoes off. Releasing their third record A Blemish In The Great Light (via Communion Records) things very quickly take a turn for the universally gazey.
From the get-go, dawning number Then Again might has well have been built from Rumpelstiltskin’s thread it’s that raptured. Strings dragonfly winged flutter to dream-worthy measures of moony nostalgia as they channel beated security like all things milk and honey. It wouldn’t be a Half Moon Run song without some sorta gnarly riff build up to a harmonious-roared paradise and there’s a taste of that too. Put this on your Crosley Cruiser switch off the lights, close your eyes and indulge in all moods immediately.
Self-fully, as much as life alters people alters craft, this is a group who trust their sound well enough to release it twice over and then come third time round, mindfully keep it captured and a little closer to heart. Favourite Boy is an easy favourite. A scored surprise with synths that wouldn’t go a-miss in an eighties coming-of-age-flick, protagonists get their shoulder thudding moment in the rain before breaking out of their shells and out into the big wide world ahead all in the space of a filmic friendly four-minutes. A little bit wistful in a breezily floated state of prime, remind yourself of how good it feels to kick leaves in the fall and that’s the level of released groove you’ll too feel from this.
Other forces include the sandy instrumental Undercurrents of which, the manifested clue rests within its name and Yanis Song, a siren-esq comfort hug of crooned warmth that swoonily flicks between underwater orchestrated and front-porch toe tapper. Half Moon Run may have jello on their minds but faithfully, their flesh and blood face towards the stars.
Now, excuse us as we go for a walk.
Words by Al Mills
Half Moon Run 2019/2020 UK & European Live Dates:
All 2019 European dates support by Leif Vollebekk
6th November - Bristol, SWX
7th November - London, Electric Brixton SOLD OUT
8th November - Glasgow, The Garage
9th November - Manchester, O2 Ritz
13th November - Amsterdam, Paradiso SOLD OUT
14th November - Amsterdam, Paradiso
16th November - Cologne, Live Music Hall
17th November - Hamburg, Markthalle
19th November - Berlin, Festsaal Kreuzberg
21st November - Munich, Technikum
22nd November - Vienna, Arena
23rd November – Zurich, X-Tra
26th November - Paris, Le Trianon
27th November - Brussels, AB
All 2020 European dates support by Shey Baba
2020
20th February - Stockholm, Nalen
21st February - Oslo, Rockfeller
22nd February - Copenhagen, Vega
24th February - Warsaw, Niebo
25th February - Krakow, Kwadrat
26th February - Leipzig, Täubchenthal
28th February - Prague, Rock Café
29th February - Frankfurt, Batschkapp
1st March - Milan, Magnolia
2nd March - Bologna, Locomotiv
5th March - Lyon, Epicerie Moderne
6th March - Barcelona, La Nau
7th March - Madrid, Caracol
10th March - Lille, Le Grand Mix
12th March - London, Roundhouse