In October of 2012, Shoot Down The Moon released Meetings And Greetings. The record was the Milwaukee indie rock outfit’s third full-length and fourth release since its 2005 outset. Not long after, the band returned to Shane Olivo’s Bobby Peru studio to lay down four tracks for what was to take the form of a 2013 EP, but eventually became the first seeds of a full-length record that took close to five years to fully write, record, mix, master, and complete. Though those four songs are still present on the 13-song, hour-long Forever Sedated, they’ve been reworked, re-recorded, and repackaged to fit the additional material that composes Shoot Down The Moon’s most cohesive and mature effort yet.
As the soft-strumming of introspective opener “Hollowin’ My Lover’s Head” nudges the record into action and the fuzzed-out, vocally-distorted “Armadillo” follows, a pattern quickly comes to the surface. The album subtly-but-consistently careens stylistically from emotive folk (best expressed in “Insanity”) to hastened psych (“Back Track Stepping Stone”), with a steady diet of songs like the guitar- and trumpet-driven “Forever Sedated” and the Elliott-channeling instrumental “Vibrant Meditation” working to keep Sedated contained at least somewhere in the vicinity of the catch-all indie rock identifier. Between the musical growth, increased lyrical depth, and the natural changes time brings, Shoot Down The Moon has finally exited the studio with something they can be proud of. Even if it took almost five years to make. Listen to it now, only at Milwaukee Record.
Shoot Down The Moon will release Forever Sedated at Cactus Club on Saturday, January 14. Live Tetherball Tonight, NeoCaveman, and SoundSweepers will play in support. The show begins at 9 p.m. and costs $12 at the door (includes Forever Sedated CD).