Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Rapid Fire Reviews: They Watch Us from the Moon

May is here! I’m currently swamped with submissions for reviews/Musings. I can’t cover it all, so I came up with the idea of doing shorter, Rapid Fire Reviews for a good number of albums that land in my inbox. They’ll be concise and to-the-point. I’ll still have the Musings columns going, but it’ll be less frequent and reserved for albums that completely blew me away. There’s also the fact that towards the end of May until late August, I’ll be devoting less time to the blog for the duration of the summer. I have a lot on my plate and I want to spend more time focusing on writing fiction and completing my ongoing Sword & Sorcery short stories. Have no fear, you’ll still get a couple of Audiobook Showcases, a handful of Musings throughout the summer, special articles here and there, and this new feature, Rapid Fire Reviews (RFR), from time to time to shine the spotlight on some cool new music. So, without further ado, let us begin with our first band to get the RFR treatment.

They Watch Us from the Moon is a mouthful for a band name, but they are definitely worth your time. Their debut album, Cosmic Chronicles, Act I: The Ascension, is an epic, psychedelic, spacey affair. The two highlights of the LP for me were the opener, “On the Fields of the Moon”, and the fourth track, “Creeper AD.” The first song is a stellar track with the twin vocal assault of the two lead gals: Luna Nemesis and Nova 101001. “Creeper”, which runs over 10 minutes, is largely instrumental and features superb guitar playing. Those two songs stood out, but the rest of the LP is pretty awesome.

Cosmic Chronicles is composed of five melodic sci-fi vignettes covering a gamut of genres of music for a solid runtime of 44 minutes. The haunting vocals mixed with the skillset of the musicians make for a remarkable sonic experience, blending classic elements of prog with modern doom at times. The space opera theme they’ve got going is seamless throughout and only adds to the proceedings. When the album lands in our galaxy on May 12th, take them for a spin, you’ll be out of this world!

They Watch Us from the Moon on Bandcamp: https://theywatchusfromthemoon.bandcamp.com/music 

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