Album: Night Moves - 'Double Life'
Night Moves return after a six year gap with their fourth LP, a candid and impressionistic personal record that comes to terms with the complexities of life.
Cozy and cool; Double Life is a return from the band that has spent a long time away. This has allowed them to stop, rethink and look inward – and it’s built from the ground up – experiencing what John Pelant and Night Moves themselves have gone through in their years. It’s a fresh perspective into the band getting older; Pelant leaning into sources like Glen Campbell for inspiration for this record. It’s an album that feels personal, opening with Trying to Steal a Smile highlights the perils of moving through, searching for silver linings in a world that’s moving through, not moving on – highlighting by the emphasis on wondering through the world. These are direct documents of Pelant’s life for the first time – it’s soul-psych-rock of the best kind, “Daytona, you only wanted a win,” he begins to wrap up the album – “Daytona, no chance I’ll see you again” – and it fits in with the rich themes of irritation brought about by the nature of life and coming to accept that you can’t just move on, but you have to embrace life head on and move through its difficulties.
Therefore, Double Life feels like a mature album because of several years of growing pains – sonically cool and light, it taps into 90s country and Bobby Caldwell for the free-flowing sound. Hold On Tonight is a work of art – personal than what has come before and inspired by a death in the family, looking at a night alone and personally mourning. It’s something that allows you to paint your own experiences onto what has come before – “I need something need to hold onto, I want to hold on to tonight,” Pelant sings – desperately pleading to ask what he can do without “you there.” His voice is catchy, creating a synth vibe that resembles the soundtracks of nineties films. It evokes an album that would not feel out of place in that time, or of the seventies – free flowing and lyrical; echoes of the Brighton band The Heavy Heavy in their bid to recapture nostalgia of days gone whilst bringing sound kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
The album feels in part a result of Pelant’s living conditions – his drug-addled neighbour would routinely get into shouting matches with his partner and spill cups of pissing the hallway. He clings to hope in these dark times – Almost Perfect allows Pelant to find the gaps in feigning perfection for the external viewer: “though some days it was… almost perfect… on the outside” suggests a hidden façade beneath it all, but peel back the layers and the cracks become apparent. There’s doom and gloom there, even in an optimistic title – by the time the album reaches Ring My Bell, Pelant feels confident enough to ask for help – something that doesn’t come easy. It’s an examination of the process of moving through life and being brave not to run away from it all. Moving on is what the band do regularly – they tap into their current living situation of touring on the road and moving for town to town – by This Time Tomorrow Pelant feels okay with the repetition of it all; any artist who has been on the road for a long period of time knows that it can get draining after a certain point and it’s all about coping with the next stage of that journey. “Laughing at the joke, but the joke’s my life,” sums up the core feeling of Pelant coming to terms with that ability to move through – poking fun at what has come before. It’s a musical evolution from grief to acceptance – very uniquely personal to Pelant’s story but with the ability to map choices of your own on there as well.
With songs no longer than 4:25 the eleven tracks on Double Life are short, sharp and punchy. It moves like a breeze – the location of the little rehearsal room in the grim industrial heartland of Minneapolis almost lends to an album created with a passionate, workmanlike feel; battling Cycles of addiction are ever present at the theme of this album as a feel of cosmic twang rock is created by form of escapism, sludgy disco at its most engaging. It’s an album that’s stronger than its nostalgic outlook – countrified rock that has shades of Neil Young at times, too – and even Mercury Rev. Influences everywhere yet its own beating voice is a solid one that makes the band one to watch.
Words by Miles Milton-Jefferies
