Chattanooga Pulse

Moonlight Bride
Myths
(www.myspace.com/moonlightbride)

Disting-uishing oneself in the post-post-punk landscape can be tricky, and it helps that the Chattanooga quartet Moonlight Bride demonstrates an admirable control over its sound on its debut album, Myths.  Recorded at the As Elyzum studio in St. Elmo, it strikes a good balance, and the drums are recorded impeccably.  The vocals are treated in a shadowy way that favors Justin Wilcox’s voice, often simultaneously ardent and nervous and with his distinctive enunciation of vowels.  A few non-jagged post-punk elements float about, like the charge of early Echo & the Bunnymen and the insistent bass lines played by Tyke Calfee.  Also, Justin Grasham’s echoing guitar lines make the band akin to early ’90s shoegazer bands and their more rock-oriented ilk (Pale Saints, anyone?), and shimmering elements on tracks like “Young Guns” actually are reminiscent of material by certain noise-pop bands like Lorelei.

“Transmissions” sets the stage with beeps and some ghostly, midnight sounds, segueing into the sinister number “The Colony,” with Wilcox’s doleful piano notes and vocals to match.  Pulse writer Chuck Crowder’s comparison of the band to early U2 is particularly apt on songs like “Coal Miners,” with shuffling drums from Matthew Livingston and a spirit that evokes a sense of conviction.

Structurally, the group’s songs tend to gravitate back to alternating between two chords, with straight eighth notes, to propel a song.  I can’t quite get behind the song lyrics, generally, and some conspicuous rhymes tend to be distracting, like “We’ll sit and watch the cars go by / We’re young guns and we’re never gonna die”; a little more oblique poetry would be welcome in that department.  However, Moonlight Bride’s strength is whipping up a certain compelling feeling on several of their tracks; it’s a tense yet hopeful rush, impelled with a sonic momentum, and the outfit is at its best when it harnesses that energy.

Richard Thompson
Walking on a Wire 1968-2009
(Shout! Factory)

One striking thing about Walking on a Wire, the new career-spanning 4-disc boxed set from Richard Thompson, is that from the opening passage of the first song, Thompson’s guitar playing is immediately recognizable.  It’s “Time Will Show the Wiser” by Fairport Convention, the legendary folk-rock band that Thompson joined while still a teenager, and his licks are invigorating and nimble.  He would further reveal Scottish folk music influences, and over the next four decades, he’d both refine and expand his musical identity.  His trademark solos are riddled with gliding notes and mordents, with a seemingly effortless fluidity; this would be enough to secure his legacy, but Thompson also has remarkable gifts as a nuanced songwriter and a hearty singer, as well.

With no previously unreleased material, Walking on a Wire was not designed with the completist in mind.  Instead, Thompson himself selected tracks from 34 albums (the major releases, not every last live album) from his fruitful career; arranged chronologically, the set is an ideal—if overwhelming, in a good way—overview for newcomers.  Disc one just scratches the surface regarding the Fairport Convention material, with one track from each of the first five albums, and further delving is certainly necessary.  After a trio of excellent tracks from Thompson’s first solo album, Starring as Henry the Human Fly, the compilation digs into arguably Thompson’s best period, the series of albums made with his wife Linda.

Richard’s picks are more-or-less in line with conventional thinking, favoring the releases I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, Shoot out the Lights, and Mirror Blue, and while fans will nod in agreement at most selections, they are also sure to quibble about omissions (what, no “The End of the Rainbow”?).  And this fan thinks it’s not entirely apt to take the compilation’s name from one of the most deeply despairing (yet beautiful) songs of his career, about a hopelessly dissolving relationship.  The song goes, “I’m walking on a wire, and I’m falling,” but when it comes to Thompson’s bountiful catalog and ample talents, that’s hardly the case.