Multiple labels – 13 May 2022
Melodic punk to blow your damn ears off
Let’s get this out of the way now: Moonraker‘s profile across several sites describes the band as “The Michael Jordan of Baseball of Punk Rock”. That’s some funny shit there, don’t get me wrong. However this band is anything but equivalent to Jordan’s mediocre baseball career. Moonraker is a powerful melodic punk trio that puts out powerful melodic punk tunes.
I’d never heard of Moonraker or any of their releases prior to getting a promo copy of The Forest, which is something I need to remedy. But from this album I will say this: The band reminds me of the fury and energy of early-to-mid The Lawrence Arms, although here everyone provides vocals on a regular basis. Speaking of those vocals, a majority are dueling between bassist Nick Schambra and drummer David Green. They both have a very Brendan Kelly-esque flavor, with Schambra being slightly cleaner with a bit of a NOFX/Fat Mike flavor; while Green seems to inhabit the more raspier range. This comparison is by no means a negative at all, in fact, it is pretty much a positive. If you loved what The Larries were doing at the turn of the century, I’ve got a good guess you’re going to love this.
The album starts with a proper intro track “Incendium”, a slow-build instrumental that ratchets up the tempo while a monologue delivered by the inimitable Bob Odenkirk, taken from Better Call Saul, sets a tone that lasts throughout the album. The intro track leads right into “My First Rodeo” and, while this song is mid-tempo, it is no less exciting for it. The composition is spot on and the vocal acrobatics between the band will get you fired up for more.
“Mouth Full of Rust” is one of the pre-release singles from the album, and is another mid-tempo track with a catchy chorus, distant backing vocals, and warbly bass line (the kind I like, where you can tell someone is just playing the hell out of that bass). Tracks like “Vanishing Act”, the pre-release single “Crickets”, and the penultimate “The Better Man” are hi-tempo melodic punk bangers that are all phenomenal songs.
“Fogdancing”, which sits about two-thirds of the way through the LP, is the second-longest one of the bunch. At 3m48s, it packs in multiple segments and feels like the most “storytelling” of all of the songs. A mellow intro pulls you into sections of super-fast percussion intersected with mid-tempo beats, and the extended end sees our narrator leaving the bar and, literally, driving away. The finale “Soot” takes the prize for longest and, while it is a good track, in all honestly from a sonic viewpoint I would’ve preferred to hear “Fogdancing” close this album out.
I know I’ve made a lot of comparisons between Moonraker and The Lawrence Arms, but that’s not to say that they are a TLA knock-off band. They do their own thing enough so that a copycat, they are not. I just can’t shake the feeling that the songwriting, composition, performance, and the overall emotion this album brings out so well matches that of TLA when they were full of piss and vinegar. This is a great album that needs to be on every melodic punk-lover’s radar, and probably should be on a lot of other people’s scopes as well because it is simply hard to deny that Moonraker have put in the effort to make an instant classic here. It exudes quality on all fronts, and the songs are a blast.
the white drew carey (aka – Jeff Sorley) is the founder and head editor of TGEFM. He’s lived (outside of) Chicago, Madison WI, (ugh) Penn State, Lyon FR, Oxford UK, central New Jersey, and now within earshot of SFO in the Bay Area. When not scouring the web for more great bands and labels to post about, he also spends time drawing (mostly) silly sci-fi and anime stuff under the name Asplenia Studios.
