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Moron Parade - Dark Nights:Knife City
This is already the 10th album by this band that has been around only since late 2000. And it's got 19 songs on it. I haven't heard any of their previous stuff, but this is somewhere in an american alternative lo-fi pop land, which is not really my cup of tea. A music journalist would probably call it post-pop or something like that.

First of all, it's not bad. There is an urgency to some of the vocals and some of it is really cool. This doesn't seem to be designed by media students to be in or right or anything like that. Some of the riffs feel like they're taken from the new wave / rock acts of the early 80's. Nothing is really fast or really slow, and it's all guitar, bass, drums and vocals without any distrortion or effects at all. The obvious reference for a punk like me would be THE FALL or WIRE, though this is pretty far from what they sound like and with a distinctly american feel to it.

I wish the lyrics had been included in the promo package, as they might have something there.

Maybe this sounds like an insult to the band but it's kinda pleasant sounding really, at their best. Some of it is a bit too wimpy though, like a TENACIOUS D type student rock, and it has a tendency to go on a bit too.
Karl Backman - Umeå, sweden
www.acc.umu.se/~samhain/summerofhate