Generally a change will do you good. After almost 15 years of recording and performing as Mike and the Moonpies, the Texas nation group led by singer-songwriter Mike Harmeier shot for the moon and jettisoned their snack-cake identify, selecting to rebrand as Silverada. To some followers, it appeared pointless: What was fallacious with the outdated identify, in spite of everything, and why now?
The reply lies within the self-titled Silverada, the band’s first album since promoters have been pressured to replace their marquees. Whereas the entire hallmarks that made the Moonpies such a celebrated reside act stay — Zachary Moulton’s elegantly crazy metal, the twang-and-grit of Catlin Rutherford’s Telecaster, Harmeier’s distinctly nation voice — the studio manufacturing and songwriting of Silverada eclipse the barroom fare and vibe that outlined among the group’s earlier information.
Produced by Harmeier and longtime collaborator Adam Odor, their ninth album is a concise blast of alt-country and indie-rock that at occasions has extra in frequent with Wilco, considered one of Harmeier’s favorites, or Fastball, Silverada’s Austin friends, than George Strait. The group plant a flag for his or her developed sound with opening observe “Radio Wave,” an imposing anthem with U2 guitars and a whoa-whoa pre-chorus. “A tough and tumble refugee with a bone to select and a spot to be,” Harmeier sings intentionally within the bridge: He and the band know they deserve a seat on the desk, dammit.
Lead single “Wallflower” is equally defiant, propelled by Omar Oyoque’s slinky bass and drummer Taylor Englert’s breakneck beat. Harmeier writes about being pulled towards an nameless face in a crowd of bar flies. On the floor, it’s a girl. Hear nearer although, and he’s singing about his band, issuing a declaration that whereas Mike and the Moonpies may need been dismissed up to now, Silverada will command your consideration or die attempting.
The acoustic ballad “Keep by My Aspect” is the album’s conventional nation second. Sonically, it performs like an outtake from Crimson Headed Stranger and Harmeier summons his greatest nasal Willie Nelson when he croons, “I gained’t take it with no consideration/it gained’t final endlessly/I’ll keep on the stage until they end up the sunshine.” (The Crimson Headed Stranger allusion isn’t out of bounds: That album confounded the business too when Nelson launched it almost 50 years in the past.)
However Silverada reaches its peak with “Eagle Uncommon.” A hypnotic five-minute opus named after a bottle of bourbon, the observe finds Harmeier bewildered by a youthful technology who “all dance like Davy Crockett” and carry flasks into the membership of their hip pockets. Right here, he’s a person in peril of feeling outdated and left behind — till the band roar in behind him with a frenetic jam that seems like Pearl Jam onstage with the Allmans. It’s invigorating. Might a band known as Mike and the Moonpies have pulled that off? Who is aware of. However Silverada did.
