Muzak: Moody Motorcycle by Human Highway (2008)

by Samuel Siskind @ 10:16 am July 17th, 2008

Moody Motorcycle (August 19th) is the debut album from Human Highway, a band formed by a current member of the Islands Nick Thorburn and an ex-Islands member Jim Guthrie. The band shares a name with a 1982 Neil Young film of which i’ve never seen, but does feature such acting talents as Dennis Hopper, Neil Young, and of course DEVO.
Before discussing the album as a whole, i’d like to discuss each song by itself.

The first track titled The Sound starts off with a loud and catchy guitar strum, and strong percussion, and as soon as the vocals kick in a few seconds later it is hard not to find your body moving along to the simple melody. This first track reminds me of a track from Thornburn’s former band The Unicorns, only a slower and more summery take on their sound. The track ends with a delightful oriental melody.

The second track titled All Day begins with a catchy ukulele strumming, and vocal harmonies follow shortly. The song is about relaxing, doing nothing all day because there is no need to, and is an excellent summer anthem. The ukulele continues for most of the song, with an interruption for a loud but pleasant solo, followed by the same gentle strumming. The song ends with a nice acapella harmony.

Track three titled Get Lost begins with a blaring drum beat accompanied by gentle “La’s”. The track has nice harmonies, and manages to create a very beautiful melody out of an oriental surf guitar riff that almost serves as a chorus. The song evokes the same sentiments as the Rolling Stones “Wild Horses”, but with a more lush production.

The fourth track titled What World starts slow with heavy bass strumming, with a very traditional sounding melody, with a catchy hook. The song includes some excellent moments of blaring battlefield drums and synthy “ahhs”. The song could easily serve as a modern battle anthem.

The fifth track titled Sleep Talking is a surf guitar ballad, and actually serves as a follow up to Modest Mouse’s track Sleepwalkin’. The track begins with a lifeguard shouting on a megaphone, over the gentle surf guitar strumming. Some piano is mixed in, but ultimately it is the string plucking and the strong vocals that make this track most enjoyable.

The sixth track is the title track of the album and is the weakest so far. It is just a standard modern rock song, and resembles something off of a Rooney or Phantom Planet album. Of course the arrangements are better, but that doesn’t save it from being a bland listen.

The seventh track My Beach is the first track to use any lo-fi production on the album, and is a gentle hawaiian country song with nice bluegrass harmonies.

The eighth track Ode to Abner features some pleasant organ arrangements and some nice vocal harmonies. It could be Leonard Cohen influenced and that is a good thing.

The ninth track Pretty Hair sounds like a track from the band Grandaddy. However manages to include some Calexico-like arrangements and psych folk vocals, grunge riffs, vocoder effects, and blues. The album picks up again with this track and it is a welcome return to form.

The tenth track Vision Falling features some wonderful deeper vocals, gorgeous string arrangements and a surf guitar riff that sounds like the gentle strumming in Nazareth’s “Love Hurts”. It all works together wonderfully on this track, and makes for a track that is reminiscent of the love-child of an 80s glam-hair ballad with 50s/60s pop sensibilities.

The eleventh track Duties of a Lighthouse Keeper features a nice guitar arrangement, that could be the product of Neil Young and Leonard Cohen mixing their sensibilities together, however some of the vocals are too bland to make the entire song work as well as it should. The SubPop style higher vocals work very well for the song however. ‘

The last track is titled I Wish I Knew begins with sirens and southwestern drums. The arrangement of the long introduction is very catchy, and when the vocals come in they are appropriately passive. This last track is certainly one of the best of the album, ending with the sounds of a departing motorcycle.

While this album isn’t a masterpiece and certainly has a bland mid-section. The rest of the album makes for an original, enjoyable pop album. I recommend the tracks The Sound, Sleep Talking, Ode to Abner, Pretty Hair and I Wish I Knew.
The album comes out on August 19th and is worth a listen.