Marieke Hardy wrote a piece in a recent edition of The Monthly critiquing Mumford and Sons’ empathy for the country rock tradition, and the band’s credibility generally. It was, like much of Hardy’s observations, harsh but fair. While The Band’s legacy continues to grow, the relevance of cheap country rock imitators will evaporate faster than Kevin Rudd’s latest bout of humility.
Moondoggies, in contrast, are bathing in substance, and bear little interest in exploiting superficial style. The band’s latest album, Adiós I’m A Ghost, opens with 25 seconds of humming campfire harmonies; what is going on here, you might wonder. But when the whisky and blues riff of Red Eye kicks in, you know you’re amongst friends who’ll look after you forever and a day; skip past the tender Annie Turn Out the Light (but come back to it later, because you know you should), and you’re basking in the lush afternoon glory of countrified Grateful Dead in Midnight Owl. Pride is soft and sweet, a tribute to romantic attachment that we all want to believe in; A Lot to Give grinds like a spurned suitor protesting his case before a tribunal of sceptical departed lovers.
The second half of the record opens with the rustic railroad shuffle of Stop Signs; why can’t everything in life be as beautiful as this track? Start Me Over is drunk with regret and the still warm memories of Levon Helm; One More Change is country rock in its perfect combustible form. Back to the Beginning tries to wind back the clock of disappointment, but succeeds only in creating a dirty great rock track that Drive By Truckers would doff its collective cap to. And if Don’t Ask Willy isn’t the best song The Band never wrote, then it’s Warren Zevon’s long-lost testament to the wonders of southern rock. Forget the commercial flim-flam – Moondoggies are the real deal.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Best Track: A Lot to Give.
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Drive By Truckers LYNYRD SKYNRD.
In A Word: Rugged.
