“Talk In Your Sleep” Review
How does Moose Blood’s new single reflect their bizarre 2017?
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2017 has been a whirlwind year for Moose Blood, an emo band from across the pond that has grown an international following. They headlined a tour in North America and traveled with some of pop punk and emo’s rising stars — including A Day To Remember, Neck Deep, and Trophy Eyes — to Australia and the United Kingdom. The boys also played the Reading and Leeds Festival, Lollapalooza, and The Download Festival, and contributed to a cover album of My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade. But, despite all of these achievements, we might remember Moose Blood’s 2017 for something far more dubious.
On March 22, Moose Blood announced via their social media accounts that they had parted ways with their drummer, Glenn Harvey. In a sign of things to come this year, Harvey was fired due to sexual harassment allegations — he allegedly sent unsolicited nude pictures to a young woman, and had been doing so off and on since 2015. Moose Blood promptly replaced Harvey with Lee Munday, who is now a full member of the band. According to guitarist Mark Osbourne, Munday is “a solid drummer, good writer, great at recording, and such a good mate of ours.”
Amid these ups and downs, Moose Blood has been working on a third album: I Don’t Think I Can Do This Anymore. Set to release on March 9th, 2018, this will be the group’s first project with Munday on the drums. Moose Blood has decided to continue with producer Beau Burchell, who produced I’ll Keep You in Mind From Time to Time and Blush, the group’s previous two albums. Osbourne has said that the ending of a long-term relationship is influencing what he’s bringing to the album, and that the band is moodier than before both tonally and lyrically. Osbourne also commented that the band is glad to be taking what has been negative for them and turning it into something positive, and lead vocalist Eddy Brewerton said that being away from family has been influencing him as well.
In advance of this album, the band recently released “Talk In Your Sleep,” a single about regret and longing. The song sounds more polished than some of Moose Blood’s previous work, perhaps an indicator of better recording equipment (success and money tend to help with that). Despite that potential factor, the band has been progressing towards a more commercial sound with each album, and “Talk” is no exception. Moose Blood also seems to be pursuing a more bass-forward texture on this new record; this track has more of a bottom end to it than most previous recordings. Lee Munday also shows that he is a fit for the band here — he falls right in sonically, and utilizes the entire drum kit. I’m excited to see what else he brings to this album. Overall, “Talk” feels more like a radio song then a lot of their previous work, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Lyrically, the song falls into an area that the band has touched on before. It tells the story of a lover leaving, and how the singer misses some decidedly emo little details about her — like how she gets faint at the sight of blood and how she talks in her sleep. The chorus explains that she has always been his focus and he wishes she would return. Again, there isn’t really anything new here for Moose Blood; “Talk” fits in with the rest of the its catalog.
To summarize my feelings on this single, I feel like Moose Blood is progressing towards a more commercial sound, but isn’t giving us anything we haven’t seen from them before. The song fits nicely with the rest of Moose Blood’s tracks, but it isn’t anything extraordinary. The track may bring in some new fans that like the more polished sound, but Moose Blood diehards may fear that the band left its small-town British roots on the curb with Harvey.
Now it’s time for the moment you’ve all been waiting for — the rating. At Sonus we evaluate songs and albums on a four-level scale:
- Skip It: For a piece of music you shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
- Stream It: For a piece of music that’s worth a listen, but not worth your hard-earned cash.
- Buy It: For a piece of music that’s so good, you need to have it as part of your audio library.
- Vinyl It: For only the very best musical offerings. We’ll only give out one or two Vinyl It ratings per year.
“Talk In Your Sleep” is receiving a Stream It rating from me. It’s not awful; it’s also not worth your money. Hopefully the rest of I Don’t Think I Can Do This Anymore is better, and Moose Blood brings something new to the table.
You can stream the single on Spotify and Apple Music. You can also watch the music video on YouTube below.
