Album Review – In The Black by The Lunar Laugh (2023) (Big Stir Records)
The fact that every album released by Oklahoma City quintet, The Lunar Laugh, seems to see them achieve new levels of musical gravitas is testament to the abilities of an act who always seems able to shift seamlessly between different nuances of guitar-pop without ever losing any semblance of quality.
As such, In the Black fights off the stiff competition of all that has gone before in their back catalogue to offer what is decidedly their most accomplished work to date.
At the album’s core is a signature sweetness that has always managed to pull itself just clear of becoming too engulfed in saccharine. As such, tracks best represented by Stranger Than Oz, So So Long, and Still Gets To Me offer all that is sedate, languid, and just downright pretty about pop-rock modernity whilst somehow managing to retain a muscularity that is not always so easily infused into this kind of sound.
When the pop-rock subsides a tad, it is replaced by the beautiful chiming riffs of Allegiance, whereas the true standout of the release, Timless Time, feels like a lost Big Star track with its fragile, almost incidental jangled riffs that has somehow floated directly through a The Magic Numbers sense of luscious pop chill.
Those that have followed the band since their inception will know that every album contains at least a couple of tracks that could grace the back catalogue of the best power-pop bands, and here the lead single, Born Weird, and the crunchy, garage-inflected aesthetic of Fake It Till We Make It continues such a wonderful ‘power-pop banger’ trend.
A fifth album that just makes you desire number six!
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