Photo by Lesha Patterson
Moonlight Bride
Moonlight Bride
Chattanooga-based indie-rockers Moonlight Bride have been curiously absent from the local scene since our cover story earlier this year. Now we know why. The band has been holed up recording a new EP and full-length album.
The new EP, Dead Language, was released digitally on Dec. 4, on all the major online retailers and was preceded by a performance on Nov. 30 at JJ’s Bohemia.
On their latest release, the foursome explore what it means to be dark yet warm, quiet yet loud, refined yet still retaining an often chilling rawness.
“I feel like good, stripped-down songwriting is becoming a lost art,” explained frontman Justin Giles. “Our generation is obsessed with the flash and flare of some pawn dancing around and pressing a couple of buttons and calling it electronic or dub- step. Dead Language is anti that.
“We’ve had the idea of doing this sort of B-side compilation for awhile now,” Giles continued. “It’s a group of songs we recorded and always liked, but just didn’t seem to fit with the material that we’ve been putting together for the new album.”
The band is currently working on their new full-length LP, which is projected to be released late next year. Dead Language sets the tone as the band progresses and is available digitally via iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and Rhapsody. The EP is available for streaming on thesouthrail.com, and includes five tracks: “Open Waters, “Wild Heart,” “Diego,” “It Could Happen” and “Silver Slumbers.”
The Hearts in Light will mark the release of its new double vinyl album, Ascend, on Saturday, Dec. 8, during a performance at Barking Legs Theater.
“To my knowledge we are the first Chattanooga band to ever release a double vinyl which was completely engineered, recorded, produced and mastered in the Scenic City,” said Kyle Malone, who fronts the band with his wife, Stacey Sausa, plus bassist Seth Ferguson.
Malone describes the 22-track album as “new age/exotic pop song-cycle with radio-friendly and dance-pop singles weaving the album together and making it a combination of experimental new age and tribal-sounding synth tracks, as well as easily accessible pop singles—something like the Beach Boys’ Smile or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.”
Malone produced the album over the past year and took a few breathers to tour Alaska and the Bahamas, where the supposed ruins of Atlantis are located.
“I took the band there a few times over the summer to play gigs and dive at the ruins of Atlantis,” he said.
Pulse music critic Ernie Paik reviews the album this week in “Between the Sleeves” on Page 22.