Tuesday, April 19, 2005

"Moxy Früvous - You Will Go To The Moon"

I remember the first song I ever downloaded. It was Moxy Früvous' "King of Spain," the live version from Live Noise. It was my sophomore year at Ozarks, and I'd just gotten my first computer that semester. A friend of mine, Josh, was over chatting with Chris, James, and I, and said there was this band that we "had to hear." This was just before Napster took off, mind you, so we had to get our mp3s the old fashioned way--through FTP clients.

And the fun thing about the old FTP clients was that you had to upload stuff before they'd let you download anything, usually. A few folks would be nice enough to allow you to download without first uploading, which I thought was good--otherwise, how would I have anything to upload? So we went and found Moxy Früvous. And we loved it.

Moxy was one of the first contemporary bands I really got into. And this was both wonderful and a terrible, terrible curse, because it was nigh impossible to find their albums in Arkansas. I managed to find several of their songs via things like Napster, but rarely did I find an actual album in the store. I did manage to pick up Live Noise, Thornhill, and Bargainville over the course of the past several years, but that meant there were still a good five or so albums left to find. I'd check every record store I visited for their stuff, rarely having any success.

So I ordered You Will go to the Moon through Amazon.com last week, thinking it'd be well worth it to finally grab another Moxy album. And, of course, it was.

I'd heard probably about half of Moon prior to purchasing the album, either through the mp3s I'd downloaded or through the live versions on Live Noise (still the best Moxy album, hands down).

Musically, this album is much more diverse than Bargainville or Thornhill, which both take their cues from the folky pop style that similar bands such as the Barenaked Ladies have mined. Moon branches out, adding Eastern rhythms and instrumentation on tracks like "Sahara" and "No No Raja." "Lee" features a dirge-like waltz tune, meloncholy and somber. "Michigan Militia" is a bizarre and effective blending of bluegrass, folk, rock, and hip-hop (listen to the wurlitzer and drum loops) with what sounds for all the world like an electrified banjo riff. The album also features a bizarre cover of the Bee Gee's "I've got to get a Message to You," complete with drum loops and a funky wah-wah guitar straight out of '70s porn. Tracks like "Get in the Car" are more traditional Moxy fare, with a Beatlesque feel and a classic guitar solo in the middle. "Your New Boyfriend" is a bouncy tune about a "right-wing shit" of a boyfriend who seems completely unlike the previous boys the girl has dated. "Love Set Fire" is a drunken funeral march (I really have to wonder if there's any other kind, honestly), and the accordion sounds like it's been plugged into an amp swiped from Neil Young. "Boo Time," which features a fun call and response scat section in the live version, is here a funky, haunting ditty with a fuzzed out bass that's downright menacing. "Kick in the Ass" and "You Will go to the Moon" are a capella (well, "Kick in the Ass" features a snare drum, but that's in in terms of instruments) numbers that feature wry lyrics, clever asides, and the excellent harmonies I've come to expect from Moxy.

This is, I think, one of their best albums. I like virtually all of their work (I can just sit there and listen to Bargainville or Live Noise straight through over and over), and this is a solid, solid record. If it's musically more diverse than its predecessor, Bargainville, it still features the same sort of quirky lyrics and sly allusions I've come to know and love in their songs. You can almost hear them smirking in each tune. These are guys who have fun with their music, and what's better than that?

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Moxy Früvous, "Lazlo's Career"

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