Mosey Jones - Swell

http://moseyjones.bandcamp.com/


Nothing's better than a little lo-fi emo rock. You've got your sad songs about leaving behind an old love, learning who your ex is with, and humanity destroying nature. It's great, it's sad, and it makes me want to go through some 90's montage just for the hell of it. Throw in some distorted chords, and you've got this album. "Swell" is a great debut album if I've ever heard one, and I have.

Onto the review, "Five Years" is the first track on the album, and honestly I can't tell if it's realizing you're about to go to college, or if it's about trying to convince your friend not to leave just yet. Either way, I'm going to go with the former because I can relate to it. Now, what I do know is that it's awesome. The track has that 90's punk feel that I've come to know and love, it's pretty great. Now, it's not exactly punk, but it has aspects of it. Granted, it's a bit slower than punk is, it has the guitar for it and the distortion, personally "slowed down sad punk" might be my favorite type of emo rock, I don't know why, I just love it. "Leaving" is a bit more instrument heavy, and is a lovely song about leaving behind a love to go for a while. From the sound of it, it's only a couple of months, but hell that can be forever. The guitar work in this song is marvelous, it's fitting. It makes the song come alive, gives it it's own feeling, and I wouldn't change it personally

"I'm A 'K'" seems to be about someone being away from a relationship for sometime, and realizing they've been replaced. At first you're angry at the person who took over for you, and at the person who's abandoned, but you don't want to say anything you'll regret. So you lie, you keep doing your thing and pretending. You want them to give you something, anything, but you don't want to lose the memory. You're not angry anymore, you're just hurt at the idea. That's what I get from this, personally. The song itself is well set up, distortion and chords just go so well with sad songs and honestly a sort of 90's Cali vocal feel. "Trustbuster" is a nice little song about nature brutally destroying those who are destroying it, and then building themselves back up on top of it. It's not so much sad as it is angry, but the vocals don't show it. They seem sad, definitely, but not angry at all. The chord progression on top of the vocals don't really give it away either, they seem just as sad. So really the song is a kind of angry-sad that I can really get behind. The swing-y 3/4 time is really kind of fun, and makes for a really nice sound. "Take Me Home" makes me want to just take a second to appreciate the percussion. The drummer really does a great job of adding a really nice sound, it's not over-powering, and it's really fun at points, especially at the beginning of this song and all throughout "Trustbuster".  I feel like "Take Me Home" is about a couple who's been going through a bit of a rough patch and just sort of having a hard time, finally getting home and having a hell of a time not being tense, and ultimately one of them end up leaving? I'm not sure, but I do know that I love this song. It's a really fun song to listen to, I've always been a fan of vocal layering, and the guitar work is just as fun as the rest of the album, distortion can be so good.

Overall, the album is fantastic. It's fun to listen to, it's just as sad as I could ever hope for an album to be, it's got that 90's crisis feel to it, it's perfect for summer listening. If you ever watched and loved any college themed movie from the 90's you'll instantly fall in love with this album, I did. So, show your love for a great band and check these guys out, they're great lyrically, they're great musically, they're great in general. Enjoy!