I’ve always loved the gloom of post-punk – the melancholy and darkness that runs through the music of gothic pioneers like Suicide, My Bloody Valentine, and Joy Division, along with the angst of Killing Joke. I’m glad there’s been a revival over the past number of years with bands like A Place To Bury Strangers, The Editors, and White Lies (to name a few) also successfully combining the gloomy of post-punk with the dreamy of shoegaze.
Irish trio Moscow Metro continue on that track, albeit adding in a hefty dose of pop, and have a number of solid releases under their belt including a recent pair of standout tracks which, if the stars align, should see them garnering quite a bit of hype – they are that good.
There’s an epic mix of Glasvegas and The National running through their two latest tracks “Late Night Radio” and “Berlin Prayer”. Moscow Metro’s music is perfect for a late night drive through the city streets and the fact that they list part of Walt Whitman’s poem “Salut Au Monde” under influences leads me to think that maybe that is the sound they’re after.
I see the cities of the earth, and make myself at random a part of them;
I am a real Parisian;
I am a habitan of Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Constantinople;
I am of Adelaide, Sidney, Melbourne;
I am of London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Limerick;
I am of Madrid, Cadiz, Barcelona, Oporto, Lyons, Brussels, Berne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Turin, Florence;
I belong in Moscow, Cracow, Warsaw—or northward in Christiania or Stockholm—or in Siberian Irkutsk—or in some street in Iceland;
I descend upon all those cities, and rise from them again.
Walt Whitman
