When
Poor Moon, a side project of
Fleet Foxes members
Christian Wargo and
Casey Wescott, arrived with their five-song debut EP,
Illusion, in early 2012, they seemed like more of an extension of their enormously popular parent band than a separate entity. Though the songs wandered safely through a couple different styles, what stuck out the most was the blatant
Fleet Fox-isms that
Poor Moon employed shamelessly in their tunes. The EP seemed like a Frankensteined composite of scraps from someone else's songs and didn't bode very well for the band's future output. Excitingly, however, their self-titled full-length album holds on to the group's affinity for curious stylistic switching but drops the majority of the mimicry. While
Wargo's soft, thin vocals and wistful harmonies on "Bucky Pony" still bear a likeness to those of
Fleet Foxes main man
Robin Pecknold, they're housed in a song comprised not of folky instrumentation but chirping bells, muted gong sounds, and rolling percussion. The moods on
Poor Moon shift constantly, and this highlights how much stronger the songs are here than on the band's earlier output. Album opener "Clouds Below" is a gentle singsongy tune so sweet it borders on being a children's song, complete with cricket and blue jay sound effects. A few songs later, "Holiday" sways in the breeze with cruise ship instrumentation and faux bossa nova rhythms more in keeping with
Jimmy Buffett's work than
Gilberto Gil. The next track, "Waiting For," turns up the reverb on every element, delivering a modernized take on '60s pop that would make both
the Zombies and
Belle & Sebastian proud. The constant changes over the album's course means
Poor Moon are taking a lot of risks, especially in comparison to how safely played their first EP was. While
Poor Moon still owe a large part of their sound to
Fleet Foxes,
Iron & Wine, and the rest of the late-2000s indie folk movement, their debut sets them apart due to the chances it takes. The result is an album not only more interesting, but far more enjoyable. All the attention that was once paid to how derivative the band sounded gets redirected to how sturdily and slyly crafted these songs are, and how open to experimentation and unlikely influences
Poor Moon actually are. ~ Fred Thomas