A Fiery, Intense, Wickedly Catchy New Album From Above the Moon

by delarue

Above the Moon are one of the few real feel-good stories in the New York rock scene in the last few years. The fiercely catchy guitar band followed an oldschool career trajectories, playing their first shows in dumps, slowly and steadily building a following which before the lockdown was coming out to see them at regular weekend headline gigs. Auspiciously, the band are still together, waiting out the lockdown (at least as far as officially sanctioned shows are concerned) with everybody else.

And they keep putting out great short albums. Their latest, Stay Awake, is streaming at Bandcamp. Maybe because of post-2016 election circumstances, it’s their angriest release yet. Frontwoman/guitarist Kate Griffin has been a charismatic presence for a long time, but in the last couple of years her vocals have become more savagely spine-tingling than ever.

The album’s first track, I Was Asleep Before is one of their catchiest, an anthem to mobilize and take control on what seems to be many levels. “Don’t know what you’re waiting for – I’m not waiting anymore,” is the big chorus, lead guitarist Shawn Murphy adding dreampop shimmer and keening upper-register riffage over drummer John Gramuglia’s relentless drive.

Chris Mangin’s bass bubbles and simmers in the equally anthemic second track. It’s one of the band’s funniest songs, about somebody who’s dealing out so much shit that “I could plant a little garden in your mouth,” Griffin wails

“One is too much but a hundred is not enough,” she observes enigatically in Just Stay, a dis to a wishy-washy guy and a musical throwback to the band’s earlier, more jaggedly 90s indie-flavored roots. Get Yours (Karma) is a little slower and more atmospheric; it brings to mind late 90s/early zeros Lower East Side legends Scout. The twin-guitar slash hits redline in the album’s last track, Birthday, a richly detailed kiss-off anthem over a pummeling 2/4 beat. This band absolutely slayed at Marcus Garvey Park last year; let’s hope there are still some indoor venues left in business where Above the Moon can play when that’s legal to do that again.