Last year, then-unsigned Minneapolis trio Night Moves posted their full-length debut for free on Bandcamp: Colored Emotions spread through the Twin Cities music scene on the back of the band's tight live shows and knockout single "Headlights", a psychedelic country gem awash in vocalist John Pelant's golden yowl. After Howler-- another young, unsigned local act-- were brought on by Rough Trade this past year, it was only a matter of time before a label would be interested in Night Moves. Pelant, keyboardist Mark Ritsema, and bassist Micky Alfanso seemed to realize this, withdrawing Colored Emotions as a free download so they could find a new record label to release it. "It was a good decision," Pelant told City Pages' Jeff Gage. "We worked on it for so long, we want to do it right."
Enter Domino Records, who signed Night Moves in December of last year. The band then spent time in Los Angeles to work with producer Thom Monahan (Vetiver, Beachwood Sparks) to give Colored Emotions a "facelift," adding overdubs and re-recording the drums. While the result sounds better-- edges have been smoothed over, the mix homogenized, instrumental layers stacking evenly as a cake-- Night Moves' big label debut loses some of the distinctive sparkle (including a song title change from "Cosmic Titties" to "Family Tongues") that made the band attractive in the first place.
Evaluating Colored Emotions based on discrepancies between the original and its reissue is like saying music on speakers sounds different from music on headphones, but in some cases it's relevant. The formerly lower register-heavy "Country Queen" bottoms out when its organ thrums and twang-y resignation are compressed, and on "Headlights", less is more when it comes to the added layers of reverb and longer running time. Even the enormous "Horses", a recent B-side to "Headlights" and a slow-motion anthem now and before, gets lost in Pelant's emphatically looped background vocals. Overdubs were taken from other parts of the songs, skin grafts to flesh out areas that for whatever reason were found lacking. They reinforced Night Moves' special blend of electrified, tie-dyed country, and in doing so highlighted a degree of repetition that's always permeated the band's work.
Drawn in equal measures from Gram Parsons and Bob Seger's heartland soul, the ingredients are all still there: the guitars rollicking through "Family Tongues", the hazy AM murk over the closing title track, and the short yet cinematic opus "Put Out Your Shoulder". They thrive in surprising opposition to each other, which is why "Country Queen"'s new, smoother levels sound merely atmospheric. Even when that's not the case, when the original threads are repeated together over the course of the album, each element's ingenuity still becomes part of the thematic background noise. Without standouts "Headlights", "Country Queen", and "Horses", these other tracks would blend together. Since this is Night Moves' debut, it remains to be seen if there really are only so many permutations of electro-psych-country or if they're just a young band with plenty of time for experimentation. Like many new groups forced to do their thing in front of a wider, more skeptical, and this time paying audience, Night Moves rely on the sound that got them signed rather than pushing themselves in a new direction, and the results are not as exciting as they could've been.
