The Lone Bellow: Half Moon Light Album Review

I Can Feel You Dancing:  Would have benefited from another verse.  It’s too much chorus repeating.  I do like the touch of brass.

Good Times;  The bass is cool, there are brass instruments which is great, and the keyboard is nice.  I like the brass!

Wonder;  The harmonic humming sounds good, then when it turns into the sample material it’s still somewhat unique.  They do just enough to tell you it’s a take on the original and call it back, but most of the song is completely original.

Count On Me:  The bass drum heart-beating throughout the song is the strongest part of this one.  The lyrics are a little cliche’, but they sound nice sung as a group.

Wash It Clean:  It is a nice song, but larely forgettable.

Enemies:  Quiet, very quiet.

Interlude:

Just Enough to Get By:  This song suddenly sounds like a completely different band.  There is no indication of this singer or sound prior to this track.  So I like it, it’s a little soulful and bluesy more than the rest–but let’s hear some of this elsewhere on the album.

Martingales:  This song is also a bit of a departure from the rest of the album (in a good way) save for the choral backing.

Illegal Immigrant:  Not an attention getter.  Too soft, too unassuming.  I do give props for any country-leaning group to tackle anything even adjacent to race relations.  This is a pretty mellow and coded and safe take on a hot-button issue.

Friends:  More jazzed up, but I don’t really like that talk-singing stuff.  I do like a touch of whistling so good on ‘em for that.

Dust Settles:  I think it might be a heavily coded political unity song.  And it tells a story in detail, as a good country song tends to do.  But my opinion is that it’s not a very original, or genuine story.  It’s a bunch of cliche’s and probably guesses about how other people feel.  I don’t get a big sense of introspection or personal feeling from the song.  It’s a bit distant, instead of from the heart.  Again though, I really give the band credit for writing on anything political–however coded and arms-length.

August:  big strings are the reason I was attracted to Lone Bellow’s earlier work.  So I’m happy some are included.  But disappointed they’re not center-stage in the song, or featured on more of the album.

finale: