Through 30 years in the indie rock trenches, Moviola has aged, but it has also changed. Their most recent single, "Slage Wave," comes through like a sirocco winding down from the Rust Belt, tinged with memory, endurance, and the slow burn of emotional lucidity. It's a song that serves as a perfect teaser for their upcoming 11th album, "Earthbound," set for release on August 29 via Dromedary Records.
An indie rock and indie pop record at heart, "Slage Wave" is the sound of a band comfortable in its own skin, relaxed, unflustered. There's some rawness here, but it's the rawness of experience, not so much abrasion as depth. The instrumentation is warm, textured, and unflashy, which means timeless. Guitars meander like radio static on a still night. The vocals are low-key urgent, beckoning you to crowd in close. It's a subtle listening experience but a heavy tonal one, a nod toward both skyward dreams and the pull of lived experience. "Slage Wave is a message from old friends who've been around and who still believe in the beauty of making noise together. There's something quietly radical about that in the fast-turnover music world we inhabit today.
It's impossible not to get a sense that "Earthbound" as a title was perfect. Though their sound has always hovered between fuzzed-out experimentation and soul-tinted folk, here they root themselves with purpose. "Slage Wave" hints at a spiritual overdrive under the skin, a recognition that roots don't preclude dreams from running deep. Thirty years is a long time for a band. But Moviola has not only survived but honed. And with Slage Wave, they prove there's more than enough magic left in the quiet corners if you only listen.
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