“Loud & Clear” is the perfect phrase to describe the content of this album by the power-trio named Moods For Moderns. The natural reaction caused by the their name would be to imagine a mod-pop recycle with an appropriate skinny-tie elegance but this band opted for a much more imaginative approach, from the sound aspect, and a much more relaxed one, from the visual aspect.
The cover itself is interesting enough to attract all of those who understand the meaning of “retro” in the most proper way which means that all of the songs are already written a long time ago and that the modern daze rock’n’roll is all about capability of arranging the known chords, harmonies, rhythms …
Moods For Moderns mastered the technique faultlessly, combining the garage Real Kids-looks and early ’70s power chords with the sixties melodies and harmonies and some extra volume. When it comes to the band’s contemporaries maybe the most descriptive line would be “the American answer to the Bronco Bullfrog” (see review elsewhere on PopDiggers pages!).
The story becomes much clearer when you hear the opening sounds of the Raspberried power pop Lust For Luster that “plays on” and on, the “Sharona-middle-eight”-based riffage of Only On A Saturday Night or the melodic energizer called Runaround and the Keef-riffs of Two Tracks Left.
The group of ’60s derivates consists of the Britpsych model Candy Apples, So Long Canada with it’s riff that’s “getting better all the time”, the early-Who formula complete with the moog-solo in Slacker Ways as well as Long Distance, an unfulfilled idea of the Spectorized Beatles 65 sound that’s much more interesting than the realistic postproductional business on Let It Be sessions.
The message of this album is “loud and clear”: rock’n’roll in its purist form with eyes/ears wide open to everything that’s happened around it from ’65 to ’79!
[Released by Doghouse 2001]
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