2012 was full of great releases from old bands and new bands alike. If you didn’t get your fill from the ridiculous number of fantastic musical delights that littered the year, one more scraped in just as the ball was ready to drop. Moose Blood is a four piece, traditional sounding emo band that comes from across the Atlantic in Canterbury, England. According to their Facebook, they only officially became a band in August of 2012 and released a single that very same month. Five months later, and they already releasing their debut EP Moving Home. Moving Home spans just under fifteen minutes with six tracks, and can hold its own against the bigger boys on the playground. The first track, called “My Own Boat” bothers me quite a bit every time I hear it. It’s a complete instrumental intro that barely surpasses a minute in length, but it sounds like it has so much more potential than to just serve as an intro. Each time I start up the EP for another listen, it feels like “My Own Boat” is going to be an outstanding song but I am letdown when it just abruptly ends. What makes it even worse is that it doesn’t even have a transition into the next song. It just cuts off and throws you right into the next track.
However that track, “Evening Coffee”, is where Moose Blood unveils their sound as a band with relaxing riffs and peculiar emo styled vocals with an English accent. The guitarists nails each chord that is played and does an excellent job of setting the mood and tone for Moving Home. The guitar stands apart from the rest of the music and with good reason. Unfortunately, the guitar sometimes overpowers everything else and makes it difficult to hear anything aside from the guitar. The drumming is normally above average, especially on the first two tracks where every hit on the snare or cymbal is put in the right place.
The vocals, as said before, sound different. Maybe it’s because of the accent or just the voice in general, but as odd as it sounds it’s certainly a merit. It’s not something that can be explained, you just have to hear it for yourself. At times the vocals are layered, such as in the second and last track, and the two voices fit together neatly. The lyrics are all about girls, relationships, records, and coffee. It’s nothing new to this genre but it’s something that’s hard to do wrong.
The next few tracks carry the same style as the predecessors and there really isn’t anything that could be mentioned, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t worth the listen. After you listen to the second track, I doubt it would be possible to stop regardless. The final track, “Bukowski”, is by far the highlight of Moving Home and was what introduced me to the band in the first place. This is a perfect song with fast paced fun riffs, vocals to match, and sappy romantic lyrics. This is the kind of song that I can play on repeat for days and not get tired of it. If you only chose one song to listen to off of this EP, make this your choice.
For such a young band, they’ve put out a stellar first release. Each track after the first blew me away with it’s unique sound, and the fact that this is a freshman release made it that much better. Whenever I inexplicably discover that I enjoy a nice cup of joe, I know where to go for my soundtrack to this revelation. Hopefully these boys’ coffee doesn’t grow too cold, I’m more than eager to see what Moose Blood has in store for 2013. 
Links: Facebook
