Spencer Krug’s raw, fragile warble may sound epic to some but ridiculously annoying to others. Fortunately, music listeners have had plenty of time to get used to his voice, as Krug has taken his vocals to a multitude of projects – Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Swan Lake and Frog Eyes, just to name a few.
This time around, the band is called Moonface. But distancing itself from the last Moonface album, Heartbreaking Bravery was recorded with a Finnish prog-rock band, Siinai. While the songs are distinctively dark, slow builders, they share the same essence of all of Krug’s other bands – that trademark shaky voice rising above grand instrumentals.
This distinctive sound is at its best when Moonface builds brooding, somehow beautiful ballads. “Heartbreaking Bravery” and “Yesterday’s Fire,” the hypnotizing one-two punch that kicks off the album, define this feeling, where the peak of Krug’s songwriting talents are on display.
Notably, any time piano is placed into one of these otherwise gloomy, atmospheric tracks, it breathes a ray of light and adds a punch of soul to the music. “Yesterday’s Fire” uses piano to amplify the song and adds a perfect final touch, just as Krug sings “You seem alright, a little close to the night, but you seem alright.”
Where Heartbreaking Bravery falters is when Krug and Siinai spend too much time building atmosphere and mood and less on melodies and engaging moments. The unbearable first minute and a half of “Shitty City” is an unfortunate foreshadowing of what’s to come. While the song eventually picks up and jumps back into the usual haunting yet endearing melodies, the beginning is just a nonstop build of harsh guitars, synths and scratching, like a demented version of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”
The boring and unenjoyable noises of “Shitty City” find themselves repeated toward the end of the album on “10,000 Scorpions” and “Faraway Lightening.” The former is essentially a two-minute instrumental introduction for the latter, which mixes whiny synths with a tribal drum beat, clashing together under a boring vocal melody that never really gets anywhere. Krug sings “oh, oh, oh,” but not in the catchy way that most bands resort to “ohhs” for. Instead, it seems like he ran out of ideas.
“Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips” is the album’s one refreshing change of pace, a quick and breezy garage-rock song. It’s got a groovy bassline and a charging drum beat guiding it along and yet again has a perfectly placed set of piano chords.
Throughout Heartbreaking Bravery, the lyrics vaguely reflect on past stories, feelings and especially lost loves. On one track, Krug sings about being “headed for the door,” on another he asks “where did you go,” and on another he says “you looked so beautiful then, you look so beautiful now.” He frequently mentions the night – the moon, the stars and the sky all make recurring appearances. On “Teary Eyes,” he passionately sings, “We can embrace the blindness that comes with embracing the night,” waits for a beat, then repeats it again.
“Embracing the night” is a pretty accurate description of what Krug does musically under the Moonface moniker. With Heartbreaking Bravery, he’s made an album built for moody, late-night reflection periods and, well, heartbreak. Unfortunately, a full album of slow-building, longing ballads grows old, and Krug’s voice can grow tiring. The album ends, as expected, with another massive, pounding funeral march of a song called “Lay Your Cheek On Down.” The song is huge and full of that trademark dark beauty – but it just doesn’t sound quite as huge after so many songs just like it.
VERDICT: Heartbreaking Bravery is a solid album for late-night moments of reflection, but it too often sacrifices melody for mood.
offitzer@umdbk.com
