Here Is Everything. The Big Moon

The Big Moon is a new name to me but one that is extremely welcome. The music has that sense of mystery and suspense. The kind that is barely noticeable until it's under my skin. The Big Moon has that kind of quality on Here Is Everything. The album's title appears to be self-explanatory.

The Big Moon is a band from London, formed in 2014 and still playing in the same line up as when it started. With Here Is Everything The Big Moon releases its third album. 'Walking Like We Do', album number two, was released in January 2020 in a western world that did not know what was going to hit it soon. Without doubt, a lot of dreams were not fulfilled for the band at that time. Like a lot of other bands, The Big Moon started work on its next album. Again in uncertain times but not just because of the still raging Covid. Here Is Everything can also be explained in terms of world and domestic turmoil, for those in the U.K., e.g.

This is not the sound of Here Is Everything. The album is a mix of alternative pop with a hint at rock and at balladry. The band moves as easily towards Aha as to more modern pop singers and not to forget the 1960s. The Big Moon is able to span a couple of decades musically while sounding modern. The production is spacious, the mix has obvious depth, as if some instruments are played and voices sung behind each other. When I close my eyes I can see the stage plan, so to say.

What the album certainly is, is serious. Singer Juliette Jackson has a husky voice, fitting in very well with many of the modern lady singers, that sets the mood for the band. All Soph Nathan, guitar and vocals, Celia Archer bass and vocals, and Fern Ford drums have to do is match that voice. It results, I would say automatically, in mid-tempo songs that all have a dreamy quality around them. With a few nice, somewhat faster exceptions. Let me not forget to mention the nice harmony singing.

Just like a band like Warpaint, that makes it, at least for me, an album that is on an edge. My mood has to be right to sit through these kind of albums. On a good day, for this music, it's really good, on other days, I need a dose of something else and fast.

The Big Moon is more varied than Warpaint, because of the slightly lighter sounding ballads. While on another side of this album's spectrum there is the opening song. Here e.g. the influence of The Velvet Underground is audible. Juliette Jackson does a mild Nico here, in combination with a little wildness from the band as an extra. '2 Lines' is a great song that put me on alert for Here Is Everything immediately. No, not all songs on the album are this good, but all are more than just alright.

With Here Is Everything The Big Moon made a good entrance into my life. An album for 2022 with references spanning decades, yet instantly recognisable as a new and fresh sounding album.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order Here Is Everything here:

https://thebigmoonband.bandcamp.com/album/here-is-everything