Pardon me for assuming that Hammock were a rootin’, tootin’ country band with excessive banjo and lyrics I can’t relate to. Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson formed Hammock in 2003, yet The Second Coming Was a Moonrise is the first offering of the Nashville-based duo that I have heard. I can now confirm that banjo is minimal and ambient post-rock soundscapes are maximal.
Strap yourself in because we’re heading into space. The album opens with ‘Inbreaking’, which is likely to conjure Matthew McConaughey’s sobbing Interstellar face in your mind’s eye. Hammock have been described as neoclassical, and two minutes in, you’ll appreciate that they have the heft of Mahler and the access to FX pedals of My Bloody Valentine. In 2003, late shoegazers Engineers were formed in London. Hammock’s ‘We Close Our Eyes So We Can See’ would fit so well on the Brits’ self-titled 2005 debut, I would be genuinely surprised if the London lads didn’t try to include it on a re-issue. The light, buried vocals are beyond uncanny, as is the swirling guitar haze that makes a half-remembered dream seem as mystical as a spreadsheet.
Fans of Vini Reilly will bask in ‘The Unsetting Sun’. Riffs tumble and chime for the first two thirds of the track, then it becomes ‘The Rise of the T-1000s’. Arnold Schwarzenegger casts a glance towards Linda Hamilton, who is locking and loading before the imminent showdown. ‘Like Sinking Stars’ is inspired by the time when Thompson’s home and studio found itself in the path of a tornado. Once again, Engineers will be scratching their ears in disbelief. Calling a lyric-less track ‘Sadness’ is, I think, a brave move. Will it convey this notoriously frequent state in a manner that is universal and not clichéd? On this occasion, yes. Yes it does. Regardless of your affinity for shoegaze soundscapes, you will enjoy being swept up in ‘Sadness’ and feeling as surly as Judd Nelson at the start of his library detention.
The album cover for The Second Coming Was A Moonrise shows a tree on the verge of being beamed up to heaven. The title track is exactly what should be played when a tree is beamed up to heaven. The appearance of wedding violins may cause you to have overreactive lacrimal glands. ‘Chemicals Make You Small’ features Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips on vocals and keyboard. It’s a soundtrack for the comedown. It’s like being bathed in light (which is possibly emanating from an alien vehicle hovering in front of your house).
‘Everything You Love Is Buried In the Ground or Scattered Into Space’ would have been too bleak a title for Ian Curtis, so the actual track better be sadness times ten. Thankfully, it is. The first two minutes would suit a Tarkovsky-like scene involving mist, flames, and the end of youth. The violins in the second half of the track are joined by Thor-thumped drums, and we’re into the territory of Craig Armstrong soundtracking an Adam Curtis documentary about the tentacles of technology suffocating our fragile souls.
Imagine Bon Iver strumming his battered acoustic inside the cave of a whale. The breathing is the backdrop to ‘Deconstructing’ – a track that cranks up into an epic so vast, it makes Sigur Rós sound as ambitious as a mayfly. Finally, ‘All the Pain You Can’t Explain’ is a eulogy without words, which manages to lace pain with hope. So, on that tremulous note, put listening to The Second Coming Was a Moonrise on your list of things to do before you shuffle off into the eternal sunset.
The Second Coming Was a Moonrise is out on 22nd May on Hammock Music
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Review by Neil Laurenson
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