Lo Moon – Lo Moon

Synthpop | Alternative

58%

It can be immensely hard at times to find a happy medium, and with their debut album it seems Lo Moon are intimately aware of the struggles found in the quest for compromise. Their eponymous first record seeks to combine the best of retro synth sounds with more experimental leanings. On paper this all sounds very promising; both 80s inspired pop and expansive post punk have been experiencing a real renaissance of late, and the simple yet memorable artwork certainly grabs your attention. In practice however this record doesn’t offer the best of both worlds. Rather than making a masterpiece with a monochrome canvas, carefully arranging elements of black and white into a musical mosaic, we instead find a diluted mess of grey that smothers the album.

The record is much too safe, as it neither offers any interesting experimentation, nor does it manage to stumble across the hit formula that comes so naturally to many other synth driven acts. There are a few signs though that band have capability to do better. The seven minute long ‘Loveless’ stands as the album’s most ambitious effort, while ‘The Right Thing’ has subtle hints of R&B and packs the record’s most potent hooks. Sadly however, for the most part this debut comes across as rather repetitive and forgettable. Lo Moon haven’t lived up to my expectations, but there’s nothing here that can’t be improved upon by some time away thinking about the direction they want to take. Instead of chasing a happy medium I feel they’d be better served picking a sound, giving it their all, and then moving on to the next sound. Sometimes the solution to an elusive compromise is to do the complete opposite and be uncompromising.