REVIEW: WILD MOCCASINS - DIAMONDS FOR CONSTELLATIONS

Reviewing Grey Ghost releases is sort of a funny thing. On the one hand, they’re curated by Mr. John Sears (whose tastes we generally take great delights in), cost a measly $2, and are available at the coolest book and record store in town (which you should be visiting all the time anyways). So, it’s sort of a no-brainer that you should be picking them up every week and we don’t really need to be spending our time reviewing them or convincing you to pick them up. But, on the other hand, if we are able to get a copy and get our noggin wrapped around them fast enough to string together a set of unsettlingly unclever analogies while they’re still on the shelves, we feel we owe it to you to proffer our thoughts and bring you that much perilously closer to finally impulse buying the too-expensive Russian Prison Tattoo coffee table book you eye every time you’re in Domy.

Horray horray horray that the Wild Moccasins’ debut falls into the latter category! This three song gem of a CDR single comes from a quintet out of the same hole in the scene wall Elaine Greer came bursting through like the Kool Aide man disguised as an aw-shucks white girl late last year, and indeed features the ever-polite Holly Hall guitarist Nick Cody on bass and one-time Greer drummer Andrew Ortiz’s rather impressive stick work (though, sadly, it’s not as obvious on this recording as it is live). Consider for a moment that there are now only four degrees of separation between the Wild Moccasins and the American Sharks – now that’s what we call scene-crashing!

Chanteuse Zahira "Also in the Holly Hall" Guiterrez’s voice is thin like a kite-string, whispy like its tail and as whimsical as the lively shoulder-tipping dance your trapezoidal inanimate aeronaut carves out of the wind over Herman Park. Her vocals work just as well on their own as when paired with guitarist Cody Swann’s nice-guy-next-door oral delivery, his every bit as earnest as hers is gentle. Musically, the sound might best be described as the part of The Strokes that doesn’t sound like Tom Petty, minus also the slavish attempt to make the drums sound like a Linn Machine and the too-cool dingy frump that comes from living down-wind of New Jersey.

Instead of bitching about the cops or fashion-model ennui, we’re given three bouncy (and unusually long) pop tracks about being better off as friends, writing checks for candy rosaries and the like. The compositions are really fun, and if there is a care in the world, they haven’t made any attempt to document it here.

This is a solid outing for what is surely a recording done on the cheap and a strong indicator that should they avoid the break-up curse, a recording they spend a bit of time and money on will be an even bigger lollypop of a treat. Diamonds for Constellations is available at Sound Exchange and Domy Books until Saturday and is limited to a single run of 13 copies per location.

PS – There is also a guy named Andrew Lee in this band, but we couldn’t figure out a way to work a mention of him into the unnatural context of this review, so we thought we’d talk about him here. Hello Andrew, we’re not sure what guitar you’re playing, but you’re doing a good job. Keep up the good work. Thanks bro.

Stream: Wild Moccasins - Various Tracks