Hotline TNT: Raspberry Moon review – love lights melodies through the fuzz

(Third Man Records)
Will Anderson opens up on the NYC group’s third album, revealing an expansive articulacy to his take on 90s indie-rock

The third album by these New York-based indie-rockers rings some crucial changes. First, bandleader Will Anderson is in love, which alleviates some of the gloom that pervaded earlier records. And while the lyrics don’t amount to much on the page, when sung in unaffected deadpan and robed in artfully embellished shoegazey noise, Anderson’s elliptical poetics carry a compelling weight.

Second, and more importantly, Anderson invited his bandmates into the studio to record Raspberry Moon. Where previous albums had been one-man affairs, with Anderson overdubbing layer upon layer of guitar and synth on his lonesome, the presence of other musicians in the room has shaken up the paradigm. Their trademark walls of fuzz remain, but Raspberry Moon also fields tracks such as Break Right, on which the happy/sad melodies flourish with space to breathe, and the lush Lawnmower, which is practically unplugged (save for a keening thread of feedback in the distance) and utterly lovely for it.