A Look-back at The Moaners Blackwing Yalobusha

The Moaners will play Tir Na Nog's Local Beer Local Band tonight, Thursday July 29, 2010 with The Springtime Collection. Moaners on first at 10:30 PM


Un-threatened and comfortably vulnerable in a wild jungle of low slung, warped, slide harmonics and loose stormy drum washes is the docile and bewitching vocal demeanor of Melissa Swingle whose shy and shoegazy confessions are like a best friend explaining the unexplainable across a forty minute long late night phone call.

Blackwing Yalobusha kicks in with a run of tracks strung together along the common thread of a cranked up amplifier and a down tuned guitar weeping out blues riffs between the hisses and strikes of rich chord strokes. A very candid lyrical style adds contrast to this active and engaging two piece rock instrumentation and draws the arrangements off guard for a mesmerizing flow. Five tracks in, the album is spinning guitar hooks one after another and the album seems set in its ways just then the needle lifts with "Pour Souls" ...a melodic ballad which parlays the blues rock shuffle of the album openers into sparse despondent reflection. The change is nuanic, like a transparent shadow casted at high noon beneath the overhang of a river side willow. The bright shimmer of Laura King's drums and smokey rasp of Melissa's guitar rig flicker and shine through the swaying leaves, but with a softer touch, allowing the song to be a singular cool spot in the heated rumbling undercurrent that carries their style down river.

On this album, The Moaners find strength in candid sincerity, delivering their own delicate unguarded persona as the style sheet for the album. Their formula of straight forward narration backed by matter-of-fact blues rock rhythms is calculated on each song and where many songwriters would see dangerous repetition, The Moaners find "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" logic and confidently drive Blackwing Yalobusha home in the same purposeful and enlightened way that they brought it to the party.

Released 2007 by Yeproc, Blackwing Yalobusha is The Moaners' second and was received well across the US and at home. Recently introduced to The Moaners, I've just picked up my copy as a prelude to Nocturnal" which is set to release in September this year. The Moaners kick off a long weekend tonight when they will play Tir Na Nog's Local Beer Local Band along side The Spring Collection before packing up and heading for two shows in Georgia. --Carrboro Ninja