Review of Deastro – Moondagger (by Jeff Milo)

Jeff Milo of The Real Detroit Weekly and Deep Cutz blog asked us if we might publish his review of Deastro’s Moondagger. We, of course, said of course. 

Moondagger feels so human. For all its synth-wrung furls and precise rhythms pulsing from that preconceived-computer-perfected genre of electro-pop, it is added a fleshy tremulous pound, a closing of the eyes, a letting go, with a lyrical parade of penetrating questions, of love, of the future, of metaphysics, of feeling. It sings of cosmic intangibles, dream-lands, myths and musings and galaxies, but mixes in earthly mortality with trembling sweat-beaded stares into bathroom mirrors, broken hearts, and the longing for closeness. As singer Randolph Chabot, between spacey skirls and warbled synth-hooks, shouts a throat slashing question, growing more animalistic each repetition, “Can you tell me what I feel, is it real, is it right?” 

Opener “Biophelia” taps in with light cascading 8-bit synths, immediately acquainting the listener with Chabot’s characteristically delectable and hypnotic melody molds – but after four measures these riotous drums like battleship guns start pounding in, sandwiching (as almost every song on the album does) the beautiful, the transfixing, with the urgent, with the upset… It’s as though the album were a study in the tumult of emotions that can follow from what seems like the insignificant questioning of an individual, of himself and of all he sees. Shambly synth cymbals shimmer like a sparking line of gun-powder leading to the ammo shed and the full band explodes outward with Chabot’s pained chorus (of ended love) sliding down in this melodious groan, the guitars aligning with the high-toned synth inflections adding in a surfy-toned reverb, as the drums pound on…

“Biophelia,” acknowledges that things must change, “What was is dead and gone and no two cells are alike / and no ghost will find us here, in the places we have been…” The drums seem to reach a peak before tumbling down into an idyllic dance-pop jostling as Chabot plainly sings, “There is no poetry, this is how I feel…”

“Parallelogram” explodes out the gate with shiny-toned synths with fiery guitar riffs for its wings in a melody ready-made for some lost Saturday morning cartoon action squad theme song. Moondagger’s quiet, meditative searching clashed and blazed with exertion and catharsis is represented nicely (on “Parallelogram”) by an almost two-minded lyrical delivery, the verses sung in Chabot’s timorous, childlike high-tone (sliding over a steady bass grove) and the chorus spilling out with a deeper, louder voice that almost trips over its preceding verse as though it can’t hold back, as these punchy, echoey drums resemble thunder and shimmery guitars cut like lightning.

“Toxic Crusaders” is side 1’s prime display of (the often-spotlighted) Chabot’s band mates -drummer Jeff Supina, bassist Brian Connelly and guitarist Marc Smak – a pensive polyrhythm slides into a danceable shimmy, the bass booms and hums along under playful chimes while the guitar gets down right funky. Chabot’s musings on metaphysics continues as his yearning croon follows the chimes “Are we not made of the roots of the planets and the trees – I’m a prophet of how things should be…”

Centered in Moondagger is “Pyramid Builders,” featuring mostly Chabot at his nest of synthesizers, computers, samplers and drum machines (reminiscent of the solo-form in which the Deastro project started out in 2007). “Pyramid Builders” has a jittery beat under intertwining melodies stepping up up up and down down down, blipped and shunted by a few video-game jaunts and a brief harpsichord-ish shashay; synthy bell chimes give it this very restorative feeling. 

The bass blurts out in its most distinctive buzz under achingly beautiful guitar tones at the opening of the epically titled “Daniel Johnston Was Stabbed In The Heart With The Moondagger By The King Of Darkness And His Ghost Is Writing This Song As A Warning To All Of Us…” yet another example of a initially delicate dream-pop opening gets an anthemic front row fist pumping vibe as the bass booms on and Chabot assures the building up of a town the saving of a boy, the winning of a fight!

Tight, prickly, new-wave-ish guitars start to blaze like the sun on rain-soaked pavement over “Vermillion Plaza,” building into this tumbling, ultra-fuzz-wrapped chorus sung in this deep 80’s faux-operatic tone that (almost Morrisey-ish) combines a standoffish boom with a vulnerable delicacy.

“Greens Grays and Nordics” starts out quiet, but the guitar feels so taught and tense in its steady knocking –opening the door of the song to the rolling rhythms of bass and drum under jittery synth jetstreams “I’ve got your picture in my pocket stained with rainbow watermarks” goes the chorus –and it brings me back to my humanistic vision for this album – almost imagining a body itself, cold yes, and a bit stoic – as it’s effected by all this futuristic atmosphero-pop and computer blips – but pulsing vibrantly from each orifice with a different color of the rainbow, burning bright, cutting and splurging out like untamable adrenaline. The body is the band, but maybe it’s Chabot, having all of these feelings, many of them close to an anger-born-from-confusion, some of them a sadness-from-heartache, or perhaps a hope, a love-born-from-potential, for community, for anything. Listeners can often find in Chabot’s music this umbrella application of love or unity to solve struggles – Moondagger is ripe with this, but with the album having been such a long and trying process for the band, they’ll likely be onto something much different for their next project. Moondagger is born from the struggles of a prince in a dream land against a King of Darkness and the corruptibility of power (and yes, the inevitability of love’s potential to conquer all that).

All these pent up feelings seem to reach their breaking point during the stormy chorus of “Moondagger,” sliding in just one track before the album’s conclusion. The verses are charged by relentless rhythms, the synths seem to lumber along with growing grumbles, the guitar feels like its throwing space-toned one-two-punches and all cylinders seem to fire in some hotblooded fuzz-fire, like some overwhelming Michael-Bay-ish over-explosive ending action sequence. 

And that makes “Kurgan Wave Number One” feel like the perfect soothing closing credits song – delivered as a twilight dance ballad with New Order-recalling laconic beats and heart swooning, softly brushed melody.

So then,…We can gobble up the wide-eyed balloon-pop, the synth swirled vigor, the heart-pounding dance-rhythms, the immaculate hooks and compare Chabot to classic/aristocratic/infallible pop song writers, to experimental prog-rock composers, but it should be noted that Chabot is a lucid soul as much as he is a lucid songwriter – he is using these sounds, these swirling tones, these words to help himself understand a myriad subjects, settings and times. And his view, his understanding, is going to transform within the innards of each album. Answers are rarely found inside Deastro’s songs (even if the search never ceases); love may not always work, evil might not always be suppressed, and it may not always be assuring when Chabot t-t-t-t-t-tells us “we’re gonna be fine” (in “The Shaded Forest”) – and future songs (as much of Moondagger’s subtext suggests) may start concerning us, all of us, in bigger, less palpable ways. Rebirth is on the horizon, as “Shaded Forest” (presented here as a b-side), one of Chabot’s older (and most initially popular) songs now features a since-added lyric over the chorus, “Let me be reborn…let me see with new eyes…”

By Jeff Milo