Album Review: Moon Duo - Circles

Indie rock can be so incestuous, endlessly feeding upon itself, touching on the same reference points and ultimately all sounding pretty much the same. So when you have a band that is looking outward instead of inward, it can be quite refreshing. Make no mistake Moon Duo aren't starting a revolution; rather they're stripping back instrumentation to the bare minimum and touching upon the cornerstones of '60s psychedelic music and the endless repetitive riffage of kosmische. It's garage-space rock, where with a few simple gestures it manages to convey so much.

Circles is the San Franciscan duo's third album, and it's unexpectedly poppy and joyous in an obvious throwback to the '60s. In fact there's an element of cancelling out all the bad shit from the late-'70s and '80s, because in Moon Duo's world you can tell it never happened. That said, you feel like you can hear references to everything from Spaceman 3 to The Byrds to Suicide – hell, even '60s bubblegum pop in their minimal motorik garage sounds. The sparseness allows space for the listener to explore their own preconceptions. 

Part of the reason for this is the outward sameness of this album: repetitive riffing, motorik beats and dreamy, reverbed vocals – the recipe barely strays. It makes any little deviation along the way momentous, which feels like knowing gestures to an abundance of aforementioned reference points. 

Moon Duo is a side-project from Wooden Shjips guitarist Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada, and there's a real ear for pop melody here. Sure it's hidden behind noisy guitars, heavily reverbed vocals and extended jams, but ultimately it's not the bluster, but the mastery over form – an endlessly satisfying garage-pop groove – that we're left with.