Late Night Special: Light of the Moon

Songs from yesteryear swirl about the mind's ear when good times are remembered. Yes, every great memory has music as its backdrop. In that way, Light of the Moon could easily be just the wallpaper to someone's future daydream, but it doesn't stop there. Instead Late Night Special delivers an album that whisks the listener away to a cool summer evening and leaves them wondering whether the place they just visited was real.

Light of the Moon is built around a tried and true acoustic guitar, one that benefits from a varied accompaniment and can at the same time be absorbed by it.

A beautiful thing about these songs is that they carry a similar feel through to the finish. In fact, it's as if the band walked into the studio determined to cut an inspired album in an afternoon and remained immaculately focused throughout the process. Everything is clean, but not so clean that it's difficult to picture the group on-stage pouring the same material out across the venue.

'Rock Steady' opens the act with the album's heaviest track and sets a quick pace. But just like all the nights that start on a raucous note, things begin to become a little more pensive as the evening flows on.

'You Got Your Hold on Me' is the nearest thing to a titular track to be found. Vocalist Fred Heintz does a convincing Anthony Kiedis and generates a familiar feel that permeates the entire record. Just enough electric six-string floats around the margins to accentuate the upbeat tempo and keeps everything firmly in the rock genre.

If 'You Got Your Hold on Me' is the most radio-ready item on this list, 'Back Home' best captures the soul of this LP. The song manages to pine for the past but never veers into mopey territory. It also signals a shift to a somewhat slower, more laid back vibe that carries through the remaining tracks. Very necessary harmonica underscores a wholesome jam that again features the lightest sprinkling of an electric guitar that almost sings like Eric Johnson...if he were taking it easy and standing out of the spotlight.

'Oak Tree' does a rare thing: it manages to be touchingly poignant without coming across as pretentious. It tells a good story—one that follows the rest of the record in seeing greener pastures on the other side of the memory fence.

And that is part of what makes Light of the Moon so satisfying: it has no qualms with painting the past as unequivocally idealistic and does so without leaving any impression of a less than perfect present. The album is escapist, to be sure, but there has never been anything wrong with being distracted by the pleasant products of the imagination. 8/10