Moon By Moon - "Chelsea"
Words by Connor Beckett McInerney.
It’s difficult not to look at music released in 2020 through a nostalgic lens, but Chelsea, the sophomore extended play by Baltimore indie outfit Moon By Moon, seems to be tailor-made for the endlessly receding memories of Before Times — albeit not all of its recollections are through rose-tinted glasses, with space for equal parts anger and melancholia over its succinct eight-minute runtime.
This tone is set on the EP’s dynamic opening title track, wherein downtempo, seemingly 90s-inspired dream pop gradually swells and transfigures into an overdriven, grungy crash; this is concurrent with vocalist and keyboardist Gabbo’s shift from a lilting alto to an impassioned, frustrated release. Lyrically this change is jarring, but it evokes the pent-up, daily feelings in such a deeply strange year; inevitably the miasma of every day’s lingering dread paves the way for moments of expressive, raw anger (“Please take me back to thinking quietly”).
Contrastingly, the following “Stars” expresses a similar dissatisfaction in terms more reserved and somber; “nothing’s making sense and nothing really matters” croons Gabbo, the hum of upright bass and acoustic arpeggios creating a twinkling canvas in the background. It’s a fitting centerpiece to this effort, given the trio brands itself as “lunar rock;” puns aside, the track resonates as both spacey and homegrown, as though you were leaving Earth’s orbit in a DIY rocket ship.
Perhaps the warmest moments of Chelsea happen not during the performances themselves, but within the ambient urban field recordings that tie the three tracks together. There’s something about this small detail that adds an inherent warmth to the experience — it almost feels as though the songs serve as a backdrop to our own mental journeys as we pass through life’s day-to-day trials.
Moreover, it subtly adds a layer of remembrance to this release, invoking the experience of carelessly going about one’s day, and the people and places that used to be regular fixtures in our lives. And perhaps, in remembering how things once were, we gain hope that this recollective period of our lives will too, one day, be just a hazy memory.
You can purchase Chelsea via Moon by Moon’s Bandcamp, and keep up with them via Twitter and Facebook. The EP is also available to stream on Spotify. Likewise, you can watch their new video for “Stars” below:
