EP Review

Long-time music enthusiast and talented musician Ben Foreman wrote this review about the Moga EP last night.

MOGA EP

Opening with something that could be directly taken from a Harry Nilsson record Moga's EP bursts with a Seventies-esque indie aesthetic. For the entirety of the album you're transported to a different time and place, which is so unbelievably rare these days that that single fact alone should be enough to make you want to go out and pick this up immediately, not to mention that these songs are really good!

All of the songs are firmly rooted in the Pop world, but they draw from so many different pools of influence they manage to not fall into the pitfalls of the so-called "Pop Cliche." Many people have a tendency to hear the phrase Popular Music and cringe, forgetting that some of the best albums of all time were clearly pop (Songs in the Key of Life anyone?). In fact, there's really nothing wrong with good Pop, it's just that no one has done it in years! Moga take this Pop medium that has been trampled over and again and manage to actually breathe life into it!

The funny thing about this band, at least to me, is how clearly Rhode Island it sounds. Just like the small state they hail from, they draw from a vast array of influences and manage to make something wholly unique, yet completely familiar ("Break My Bones" could easily have been on an early Paul McCartney album). Take a song like "Mountaintop," how easy is it to picture this being a Slowdive song? Which it clearly is not! In no small part due to the Grace Slick vocals by way of Ana Mallozzi (which are superb by the way). Her being on the song is just one of the many ways this band manages to make you think they're taking you one way and just turn the song on it's head and take you down "the road less traveled."

Yes, there are points when the songs go on slightly long, or the use of synth is a little over the top, but it doesn't ruin the songs by any means. My biggest gripe is with the song "Canopy," whereas all of the other songs have a dynamic layering to them, this one just seems very one sided and not at all of the same caliber as the rest. That being said, this band is the best thing Providence has going for them right now.