The Recommender

Having recently come across this band, via the Future Sounds site, we are still not quite sure how to pitch our coverage. We have a small problem with this new find and it’s a tricky one to explain. However, it’s our job to unravel these things, so here goes…

Our issue is that Walk The Moon, a four piece from Cincinnati, make music that’s constructed too perfectly. OK , it’s pop that the radio will utterly adore, the mainstream will sing along to it whilst they smile into a morning coffee on the sofa, the booking agents will secure them slots in ever larger venues and the labels will rub their hands as hit after hit leaves the Walk The Moon factory. The problem is, can your appeal be too broad?

They sound like the long lost child of The Killers and OK GO. Like the former they seem perfectly skilled enough to build a masterpiece of a pop tune, with big hooks, even bigger choruses and plenty of breaks to allow the listener to get involved. Sadly, like the former, their immaculate songs don’t resonate quite long enough for you to discuss them in the bar later on. “I heard this amazing tune earlier“, “oh yeah, who by?”, “um…um…no sorry, it’s gone“.

That’s not to wipe them away as some kind of forgetful cliché of a band. No no no. They seem better than both The Killers and OK GO in our opinion, but where the likes of Animal Collective and MGMT added in a little spicy experimentalism with their pop, or Editors added in a little darkness with their radio-friendly tunes, Walk The Moon seem not to have found their edge yet.

To get back to our main aim though, as we are here to recommend, not to extinguish, we must clarify that they’re still very very good at what they do. Not every band has to appeal to the hipster crowd – with angular guitars, druggy psychedelia and floppy haircuts. Balls to all that. This band have a swing, a charm and most annoyingly a set of almost perfectly-pitched pop songs, of a kind that will bring back all those same feelings you had when you watched the good-looking guy get all the girls attention at school. It’s not personal, they’re just that good, so just go with it.

Their debut album, ‘I Want, I Want‘, was self released late last year and is available to buy right here. Throughout the entire LP you get to experience the band’s shining star, singer Nicholas Petricca. His playful confidence is draped all over every one of the ten upbeat, melodic tracks. The album’s highlights include ‘Anna Sun‘, from which they’ve the most playful video since LCD’s Drunk Girls, and songs like ‘Lisa Baby, or ‘Jenny‘, which show them thumping through the kind of indie that’s virtually impossible not to dance to. The album closer, ‘I Can Lift A Car‘, will have your mood so pumped up by the end that your smile will blind those around you.

If you like your indie pop to be positive, catchy, energetic and astonishingly consistent then you have to buy this album. It’s so well aimed at your happy button that it has the power to bring sunshine into the darkest corners of life. So to conclude, here’s the way that this should be pitched – stop wallowing, stop asking why, stop trying so hard and switch off for half an hour by getting into this lot. There. Sometimes the answers are found in the simplicity of it all.  (MB)

WALK THE MOON – ANNA SUN

WALK THE MOON – LISA BABY

WALK THE MOON – I CAN LIFT A CAR