Legendary post-hardcore outfit and swancore pioneers Dance Gavin Dance have a secret band, aptly named Secret Band. Comprising of all members but the clean vocalist, Secret Band takes on the heaviest and weirdest aspects of every member.
I love Dance Gavin Dance, I think it's pretty evident, and I was pretty excited when I first heard of their subgroup project. For some reason or other though, I never really got to listening to any of the records, but for some reason managed to catch a good listen of Moon.
Moon alone outdoes the entire Dance Gavin Dance discography in heaviness. With Jon as the sole vocalist, the entire project is dedicated to screaming and a brutal instrumentation to complement that. Without the need for pop sensibilities, every other member also gets the chance to dive deeper into their musical absurdity that defined most of their main project.
Moon starts off with an odd time signature and an oddly fun layered riff and some good chugs, before Jon comes in and starts his iconic screaming of weird lyrics. Throughout the first verse, we get everything from Jon straight up laughing, a little drum solo moment from Matt, and even some pick scraping which is not something I ever expected from Will. There's a good amount of dissonance thrown in as well, which is always fun and heavy.
The breakdown is one of my favourite moments of this song. There's something visceral and raw about Jon's scream tone here, especially with how high it gets and how clear it is against the spaces of the breakdown. The little funky riff against the syncopated drum beat is groovy, and then they switch to constant double kicks and a full sonic assault for a hot second before finally going back to the verse.
The final minute and a half of the track has this ominous intensity to it, powered by the relentlessly building instrumentation and sinister-sounding lyrics, as well as the echoing evil laughter afterwards as the song fades out. The lyricism about the moon is both absurd and dramatic, with sentiments of the moon being some kind of god and to be worshipped, and all sounding like some sort of fever dream. It seems on brand for Jon Mess though, although it's the first time I've seen one connected lyrical concept be addressed for a whole song, when he usually just throws a lot of random absurd lines together for a Dance Gavin Dance song. It's surprisingly cohesive for the crazy man, and honestly refreshing to hear his ramblings this way.
Secret Band is definitely worth checking out for any fans of Dance Gavin Dance, especially if you enjoy weird and heavy. I have yet to get to the rest of their discography but I'm confident it's full of good stuff. For now, I'm happy to say that Moon is a banger.
Rating: 4/5