Under the Pale Moon is Fresh & Onlys guitarist Wymond Miles' second solo release this year. The first, Earth Has Doors, is an ornate, intricately composed four-song EP culled from a backlog of songs accrued over several years. Meanwhile, Pale Moon was written and recorded within two months. Compared to the EP, the album's origin story reads like a burst of cathartic inspiration; according to Sacred Bones, his closest friend and some family members passed away within a short period of time, inspiring him to write and record the album's 10 songs. (The final line in the liner notes: "in memory of robin.") That explains why heartbreak, tragedy, and poetic melodrama hang heavy over Pale Moon.
Almost every song seems to come from a place of pain, confusion, or struggle. And as he explained in an interview, that's probably the case: "Lyrically, [the album is] a fairly direct mirror of my life at the time." The most direct example of that is "Pale Moon", where the lyrics are riddled with loving analogies before revealing some hard truths ("you want to be free from me," and "I just can't go on when I'm this tired"). And "Youth's Lonely Wilderness" seems to speak directly to Miles' loss ("Here we stand, two broken friends/ One beyond and one below"). But as the album goes on, the lyrics get more and more symbolic with varying degrees of success. The devil is brought up, as are ashes, darkness, and "a murder of crows." They're all deeply resonant images on their own, but after the album's 40 minutes are up, it's easy to feel like he's dipped into the Dictionary of Symbols one too many times.
In some instances, his lyrics are buoyed by the emotional heft of his instrumentation. As Earth Has Doors revealed, Miles is excellent at conveying a feeling in his compositions; "As the Orchard Is With Rain" managed to be mournful and contemplative without offering any lyrical narrative at all. Here, he sets the mood with a strong core hook, like the jangling backbone of "Pale Moon", which shifts from a major chord progression to a minor chord progression as the song thematically moves from warm nostalgia to grim reality. And he'll top the hook with a complementary flourish, like that same song's Spanish guitar solo. (Since this is an album of weighty material, it's easy to forget that he is, in fact, a great lead guitarist in one of the Bay Area's best garage bands.)
But the secret weapon behind Pale Moon is Miles' voice, which sounds as sensitive and pained as the instrumental moods he's set and his open-wound lyrics. He croons every song with a delicate, throaty warble that's flawed (he'll occasionally overemphasize a syllable), yet effective in its ability to tap into a specific song's mood. Because he packs so much emotion in his vocal delivery, his voice sounds like it could be an affectation. But when he trades out his go-to whisper for a cornball manly belt on album closer "Trapdoors & Ladders", the former is clearly much more preferable.
That final song marks a major issue with Pale Moon: The record starts to drag before it reaches the end. While side one is packed with solid hooks, like the slow-building jangle of "Strange Desire" or the slightly heavier riff and solo on "Run Like the Hunted", side two is a comparative slog. The hooks get a little less interesting and a little more repetitive ("You and I Are of the Night"). The lyrics begin to feel more corny (from "Badlands": "With your drinking habit and worn out leather jacket/ You're a burnout castaway of rock'n'roll"). And although it includes some interesting tinges of atmosphere, the self-serious symbolism in the lyrics for "Trapdoors" seems to have jumped out of a prog-rock caricature.
It's a disappointing place to leave Pale Moon, which is front-loaded with moments that are devastatingly honest and flat-out beautiful. And although there are several easy and semi-accurate comparisons to be made to early Cure records, Miles didn't have those things in mind. "I went in making this record without any conscious stylistic choices," he said. "I just wanted something raw and true to the moment of writing." Despite the album's flaws and thudding conclusion, that's the best gift of Under the Pale Moon-- it wasn't toiled over for years. It's a document of what he needed to get out in that moment.
