{"id":26595,"date":"2023-12-19T05:30:24","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T10:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26595"},"modified":"2023-12-20T10:01:15","modified_gmt":"2023-12-20T15:01:15","slug":"album-review-the-lunar-laugh-in-the-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/19\/album-review-the-lunar-laugh-in-the-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Lunar Laugh \u2013 In the Black"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-26596\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/lunar_laugh_black.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/lunar_laugh_black.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/lunar_laugh_black-300x300.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/lunar_laugh_black-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>By this point in our shared musical journey, gentle reader, you\u2019ve likely discerned that the Big Stir label is a trademark of quality. Co-helmed by the passionate, dedicated and hard-working duo of Christina Bulbenko and Rex Broome, Big Stir brings a remarkable amount of new music to the world on the regular. And the standard is so high that given a moment\u2019s pause, I can\u2019t think of a single dud among any of the label\u2019s recent releases (well, on refection there was <em>that one<\/em>, but I didn&#8217;t review it).<\/p>\n<p>None of which means I\u2019m prepared to rubber-stamp a new release from Big Stir, nor assume without listening that it\u2019ll hew to that very high standard. But I am certainly inclined toward expecting all of that when I receive yet another disc with the always-welcome handwritten note from Christina (how <em>does<\/em> she find the time?).<\/p>\n<p>Enough about the label. In my hands this moment I have <i>In the Black<\/i>, the new album from The Lunar Laugh. Were I not to know that it\u2019s a Big Star release, at first glance its cover art might have me thinking it\u2019s a progressive rock album. Alas, it is not. A closer look at that cover reveals something a bit more fanciful; perhaps whimsical, even.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s energetic, supercharged and melodic rock and pop of the power sub-variety. Musical touchstones might include Greenberry Woods, Cheap Trick, Material Issue, Gin Blossoms&#8230;you get the idea. Throughout the album, the music consistently strikes the right balance between power-chording chug, alternarock hookiness and singer-songwriter contemplativeness. That all adds up to some great music.<\/p>\n<p>The band has five or more members \u2013 it\u2019s not immediately* clear from the detailed liner notes who\u2019s an official member and who\u2019s an auxiliary\/guest player \u2013 but that matters less than the sum of the collective parts. At least three songwriters \u2013 variously on their own and\/or in combinations \u2013 are responsible for most of the music. These are songs the listener can dig into, luxuriating in the creamy harmonies of \u201cAllegiance,\u201d the sharp hooks of \u201cBorn Weird\u201d and the bouncy synth meets <i>Sgt. Pepper<\/i> vibe of \u201cFake it Till We Make It.\u201d It\u2019s all done with wit, style and precision. Recommended.<\/p>\n<p>* okay: when you read more closely, it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By this point in our shared musical journey, gentle reader, you\u2019ve likely discerned that the Big Stir label is a trademark of quality. Co-helmed by the passionate, dedicated and hard-working [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[3969],"class_list":["post-26595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-the-lunar-laugh","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26605,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26595\/revisions\/26605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}