Let's face it: Prog has never been cool. Your first guitar teacher, the one with the Yes shirt, was not cool. The kid I knew who worshipped Neil Peart, and had a license plate that read "DRUMGUY" was not cool. And no matter how much you may love Genesis, that won't erase the fact that Peter Gabriel eventually left Phil Collins in charge. On the other hand, Gospel are cool. Cool enough to get approval from the white-studded belt, sideways trucker hat, back pocket bandana crowd, and the unadorned (and girlfriendless) music geek crowd.
What makes Gospel so cool? It could be the patchwork of functional King Crimson via Converge riffs, sprayed out drum work that's reminiscent of Damon Che of Don Caballero fame at his drunkest, and Dazzling Killmen-esque guttural yells. Then again, it could just be that the band sprawls out on a nice medium ground between math-rock and technical hardcore/metal. It's not a crowded genre as the years have shown that heavy bands with prog influences end up becoming black metal, Dream Theater, Ruins, or a brutal prog era Weasel Walter project.
It's a good thing Gospel have an entertaining drummer: His corrugated beats are the highest item in the mix. We're actually allowed some prominently displayed keyboard work as well, which is abnormal for a non dancepunk album that's fit to be sold at Hot Topic. But how do you get the kids with scene hair to listen to mutant prog? Just make all the tracks hover around the five-minute mark. Cautious? Of course. But the nine-minute "A Golden Dawn" proves why this works-- it's by far the poorest song on The Moon. It fails to shimmer and ends up sounding like an outtake from a Trail of Dead practice.
Gospel use the tools of the trade to fix the problems attention deficit listeners (hardcore kids) had with prog. The spiraling arms of the guitar lines and the splotchy drums of "Yr Electric Surge is Sweet" bridge the gap between the rage of hardcore and the extensive rehearsal of prog. "And Redemption Fills the Emptiest of Hearts" evens manages to inject a perverted version of the most standard of hardcore gimmicks, the breakdown. Sure, they disguise it a little, but not enough to displease the ears of Norma Jean kids, and then they move straight into King Crimson-inspired keyboard and synthed guitar interplay. They even go so far as to make Tool palatable to the underground with the Middle Eastern guitar lines and echoing soundscaped instrumentation of "Opium". (I was digging Gospel until they made me reference Tool and lose what little cred I had as a music reviewer.)
Tricking the kids would be shameless if I didn't wallow in Gospel's message. Granted, they're displaying their influences a mite too visibly. Gospel strip down their influences to compensate for many of their favorite band's substituting polish for violent energy. Maybe Gospel are cool because they are smart enough to meld prog with today's updated hardcore. But knowing today's hardcore scene, maybe Gospel are just cool because Kurt Ballou of Converge recorded their album and Converge make some of the hippest hoodies on the market.
