Album Review: Half Moon Run – A Blemish In The Great Light

What made Half Moon Run so incredible when they first burst onto the scene in the early 2010s was their knack of pulling hundreds of different ideas together, and somehow, almost accidentally, making cohesive, cinematic folk – with a splash of Radiohead. 

Things threatened to fall off the rails with 2015’s Sun Leads Me On LP, but on the new effort, A Blemish In The Great Light, things are well and truly back on track. It's an exciting collection of mysterious material that fuses acoustic rhythms with synths, strings and some wonderful harmonies.

If you're after some classic Half Moon Run angst, opener Then Again will be right up your alley. Favourite Boy leans on Mac DeMarco-esque guitar tones to colour its dark melodies, while the epic Razorblade establishes itself as a playful rhapsody before suddenly flipping into a murky breakdown with the mother of all backbeats. As the title suggests there are a few blemishes here – Yani's Song feels like the band attempting to write another Throes (a beautiful one-minute instrumental that’s racked up nearly 60 million streams for the band online) but instead feels like filler, while closing track New Truth stagnates and ends the colourful record on a grey note. 

Overall, however, this is an overdue great light from one hell of a talented band.