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Moving Mountains - Pneuma
By Travis Parno
Published: April 19, 2008
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Band: Moving Mountains
Album: Pneuma
Label: Deep Elm Records
Overall Score: 4.5/5

 

When it comes to reviewing, I’ve found it can be rather tough to write about an album that holds a place near and dear to my heart.  I’m supposed to separate myself from my affections and critically evaluate the release under a variety of criteria.  In many cases, however, the music just refuses to be distanced from my person.  With Moving Mountains, this is most certainly the case.  Never has an album jumped so quickly into my rotation, and with such violent force, as to reach the 75-play mark in a mere 35 days.  And it shows no signs of letting up.  But enough about me.  Let’s play the imagination game.

Picture yourself standing in front of a massive expanse.  It’s night and as you gaze upwards, the stars emerge from a lush backdrop of dark blues and purples.  Now see the vast void below you filling with liquid music, stratified films of shimmering melodies and voluptuous harmonies.  Your feet leave the ground as you’re slowly lifted by the restrained fervor of the rising tide, heading ever upwards toward the celestial bodies suspended above you.  The sumptuous heat washes over you and you dissolve into the infinity. 

It’s a (melo)dramatic image, no?  I dare you to try listening to Pneuma without feeling at least a fragment of that sort of colossal intensity.  This album will swallow you whole.

Originally released on a limited basis by an as-then-unsigned Moving Mountains in 2007, Pneuma finally saw the official light of day in late February of 2008 courtesy of Deep Elm Records.  Bedecked in vibrant guitars and saturated with soaring vocals, the album traces a simple metaphor of boy and girl as sun and moon.  Almost every track features layered instrumentation that is absolutely doused in reverb to create an atmospheric experience that is nothing short of dreamlike.  At the heart of the band’s approach is an energetic core of melodic rock that beams through the diaphanous haze, warming the music with its jubilant glow. 

Pneuma progresses very organically, hewn from natural ingredients and tactile passions.  “Aphelion” offers a brief glimpse of the album’s trajectory in a very intro-y way (short track, heavy on music and incomprehensible lyrics) before the band scales things back to deliberate rock speed with “Cover the Roots/Lower the Stems.”  It’s an efficient track that seems designed to hook the casual post-rock listeners, arresting their attention before drawing them into the folds of the album.  “Alastika” and “Fourth” mark the foray into Moving Mountains’ huge sound, but it isn’t until “8105” begins that the band’s brilliance is fully realized.  One could, without a doubt, write a complete review of this 8:33 opus.  Stacked with revolving guitar parts and pulsing percussion, “8105” ebbs and flows in movements, at once swelling and retreating throughout its duration.  Time signatures change, instruments enter and exit seamlessly, and vocalists blend as the track drifts through heavenly currents. 

After a quick instrumental breather (“Bottom Feeder”), Pneuma changes pace yet again.  Moving Mountains could have easily dropped the ball with the stripped-down acoustics of “Sol Solis,” but they (barely) manage to avoid doing so.  While the track is light-years away from the denseness of the rest of the album, it succeeds in showing another, more intimate, side of the band.  Unfortunately, it also reveals the lyrical weakness behind the wall of music.  The bare metaphors, which unassumingly gel with Pneuma’s complex instrumentation, sound a bit naïve when thrust in front of a single guitar.  “Grow On, Grow Up, Grow Out” signals a return to form, in all its size.  “The Earth and the Sun” and “Ode We Will Bury Ourselves” fortify the album’s dichotomous concept in grand fashion, teeming with suspended chords, anthemic drums, and gang vocals.  It’s amazing that even while saddling the final track with a rather morbid title, Pneuma ends with an irradiant smile. 

Although it was a bit of a trial to get Pneuma properly released, it was clearly worth the wait.  Moving Mountains refuse to be written off and this is not an album to be taken lightly.  There is an uncommon depth here that is so rarely found in the contemporary music scene.  “Epic” is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days but I can’t think of any album more befitting of the term.  Pneuma is truly a gem.

 

Give it a try if you like: The Appleseed Cast, Sunny Day Real Estate, Explosions in the Sky, Minus the Bear 

Listen to Moving Mountains here.

 

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