FIRST LISTEN: Moon King – Secret Life
Moon King is the duo of Daniel Benjamin and Maddy Wilde (not to be confused with West Coast psych band Moon Duo). That is pretty much all I knew, when I put on their new album Secret Life.
The album opener Roswell sets the mood right and hits you hard with a big wall of sound. What is it? Electronic music or maybe shoegaze? When Maddy’s voice sets in it is somewhat muddled in the mix, which is consistent with the latter. But then track two Secret Life gets much more melodic and there is an acoustic guitar in the following track Impossible. And later, Apocalypse is an actual rock song. It feels like Moon King do their music with whatever makes the right noise. I like that.
But who is Moon King? They are from Canada and funny enough, songwriter Daniel Benjamin is the brother of Airick Woodhead of Doldrums who released his new album just a week earlier. No wonder that they played Mercury Lounge together last Friday and too bad that we had a conflict with a different show.
Secret Life is out now on Last Gang Records (Spotify, iTunes).
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