Album Review: The Men - New Moon

Brooklyn's The Men have been workhorses, tirelessly touring while churning out a record a year. Their latest album is New Moon, and despite the brilliantly executed shift in tone and musical approach that occurred on last year's Open Your Heart, opening track Open The Door is bound to throw most fans, starting with a slightly honky-tonk piano a la pastoral Neil Young (also the name New Moon could point to the new direction for the band, or a tip of the hat to Young himself). The hardcore aggression from years past is all but gone leaving a two-pronged personality – the part that electrified audiences with their brazen brand of hard-edged punk underlined with an economical, no-frills approach to making noise (and still do); and the earnest songwriters, using the generic tropes of popular song structure to expand on what is and should be expected of any band, let alone The Men.

I Saw Her Face is possibly the best example of this – a Neil Young/Crazy Horse countrified dirge, with fantasy/reality lyrics and a wonky, can-fall-apart-at-any-time distorted guitar sound while Mark Perro warbles along with the high timbre that mirrors the cagey, cracked-genius Canuck. It's an excellent song, and despite the second half steering closer to past hardcore/garage glories and concepts (The Brass, Electric, the excellent noise wigout closer Supermoon) it's becoming clearer than ever that The Men are growing into themselves nicely.

There is no pretention here – the band is finally embracing all of their influences, and in doing so is redefining themselves, and possibly a whole sound. Country as the new punk? That's what true country has always been.