Still from video for "My Holy Shrine."
A chiming guitar, light percussion from bongos, an ambling bass, a laconic vocal describing a trip down a city street evocative enough that one can visualize the dim sulphur lights, shadows shortening and lengthening as the voyage proceeds. The journey begun, a wavering, fuzzed-out guitar strides onto the scene, taking its time to develop its ideas. The second guitar switches to a fuzz of its own, and together they take the song farther out. Another vocal break, this one taking things in a more surreal direction. “The sun shines on the moon,” two voices sing, and the band keeps going, keeps searching.
“Bodega on My Mind/The Sun Shines on the Moon” is the opening track from Walking After Dark, the latest album from the Mountain Movers — Dan Greene on guitars, vocals, percussion, keyboards, harmonica, and autoharp; Rick Omonte on bass, percussion, and drum machine; Kryssi Battalene on guitars, vocals, synthesizer, keyboards, and drum machine; and Ross Menze on percussion, guitars, synthesizer, and sampler — that finds one of New Haven’s most established psychedelic rock outfits continuing to develop its sound and explore new territory.
Where previous releases featured distortion-drenched freakouts powered by a driving rhythm section, Walking After Dark deploys more synthesizers and less percussion to broaden the sound. The opening track gives way to the watery synth experiment “Factory Dream,” followed by the floating, misty song “My Holy Shrine,” and the long-form, ambient “Reclamation Yard.”
After the vibey, acoustic “See the City,” which feels almost like its own departure, the Movers return to more traditional songs with “In the Desert, in the Flood,” with its near-perfect match of surreal lyrics and hazy instrumentation. “Night Birds in the Trees” then swerves into overtly electronic territory, with (presumably) all four band members trading their analog instruments for synthesizers. “We Are All Flowers” is another gauzy, atmospheric song from Greene; the album closes with the 19-minute electronic jam “Ice Dream,” which ends, fittingly, as the album began, with bongos and electric guitar sending it off. All told, Walking After Dark is another step in the path the Mountain Movers are following, moving great weights at their own unhurried pace.
Similarly, Brian Ember’s Thank You, his follow-up to 2019’s The New Chastity, further hones a songwriting style that draws from the history of rock all at once, ably aided by Kaiser Vilhelm on bass, electric guitar, keyboards, and backing vocals, Mike Nappi on drums, Fred DiLeone on keyboards, Kimberly Hallman on backing vocals, and Dustin Kriedler on saxophones.
The album opener, “Tomorrow Looked Better Yesterday,” pulls equally from doo-wop and 70s drama-rock to open the album on an ecstatic flourish, marked by Ember’s emotionally direct lyrics mixing humor and sadness together: “A song is a history of a feeling / That will not go away / For months my heart’s been reeling / Tomorrow looked better yesterday.” “Tinted Windows” charges ahead in late-70s/early 80s new wave style, complete with anguished lyrics.
Your ghost is everywhere
The sun sets strands of your red hair
And I can’t leave the house anymore
I’m running to the car and closing up the door, because
You can’t see my tears
Can’t see my tears
See me crying through my tinted windows.
Those lyrics, however, are delivered in a high falsetto that gives the melodrama an ironic twist. Take it seriously, but also, please don’t, and don’t forgot to dance.
“Ghosted” lands firmly in shiny, synth-driven 80s territory. Then “Untitled (TItled)” swerves into a greasy swing powered by horns, voices, and percussion like a street parade. “Sleepwalkers,” the album’s closer, uses Johnny Cash-style country for a series of stylistic diversions featuring a strong second lead vocal from Hallman, backed up by perhaps the most creative use of backing vocals yet, on an album with a lot of interesting vocal work. It may end with a verse sung in Turkish. “Sleep and forget / Help me forget him,” Hallman sings, but it’s likely the song will bounce around in your head for days.
Find both the Mountain Movers’ Walking After Dark and Brian Ember’s Thank You on Bandcamp.