Light side of the moon

Moontan - Golden Earring (1973)

So much to hear here. Even putting aside radio staple "Radar Love", this album deserves a serious evening listen.

We open with a nice wah lick, which for me, is probably the best way anything can open. "Candy's Going Bad", (88/100), is the first track on the European release and I'm guessing that's Candy there on the European album cover. You can imagine how bad she's going easily enough, and while that may not sound like the most inspiring premise for a song, this song defies any preconceptions one might have.

Keyboard flourishes follow soon after the guitar intro settles in and there's a really nice understated guitar solo at the two-minute mark. What Golden Earring are so good at on this album is layering -- starting with a simple little progression, then adding another instrument, then another and then finding some killer riff to go to town with. Then when they've got that going, they change the song completely and do it all again. At the 3:37-mark, "Candy" changes with a nice, long, mellow fade-out.

"Are You Receiving Me", (95), (http://www.mediafire.com/?gnkywnj2znk) follows the same successful formula, including a little wah to start. Boasting a beefy, brass chorus, this song possibly deals with the impossibility of communication in a human race that can barely understand each other, or even wants to. These themes are also addressed in Neil Young's brilliant 1982 album Trans, perhaps a future post. This song shifts into another dimension at 3:43 with a wonderful five-minute guitar-laden digression, before dropping us back off at the chorus to conclude.

"Suzy Lunacy (Mental Rock)", (60), is a great title. The song itself is okay, although I'm always still recovering from the sheer awesomeness of "Receiving" for it to stick out much in my memory.

"Radar Love", (79), is great, but suffers a little from overexposure for me. I love when the drums kick in at 3:50, and the the 'oohs' and 'aahs' on the build to the chorus sound awesome. How many songs name check Brenda Lee? There's also "Dream Of A Child" by Burton Cummings, (1978), off the top of my head.

Speaking of name checks, who's Vince Taylor? Apparently, he was the "Black Leather Rebel", a British rock-and-roller in the Elvis era, with his band "The Playboys". His star waned in the mid-60s, however, drifting into drug casualty and religious nuttery, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Taylor, for more info). "Just Like Vince Taylor", (66), is Golden Earring's tribute to the tragic figure, stylistically faithful to that era's music, with a post-chorus riff that brings Barrett Strong's 1959 "Money (That's What I Want)" to mind.

"Vanilla Queen", (90), starts with a great keyboard tease, foreshadowing some of The Cars' crazier stuff. This song builds and changes as much as the album's first two songs and may itself be a thematic sequel to "Candy", with her "mask [of] sterile dignity". At 3:12, the song begins a beautiful acoustic journey which cuts back too soon to the chorus, before descending into sound-effects insanity. Then at 6:30, we get one final build-up into another killer riff, this time with brass (including a couple shots of trombone (?) that sound like psychedelic elephant). It's an appropriately big and wonderful finish to a nostalgically-bent, intensely catchy album that would also not seem out of place in the Blue Oyster Cult catalogue.

But wait! There's more! The flute-fueled jaunt of "Big Tree, Blue Sea", (74), from the North American version threatens another bombastic epic, then goes mellow. Largely flute-keyboard interplay, the minimalist breakdown may be a fraction too long, but not horribly so. Still ... I'm glad when the bassline starts up again. I like this track better than both "Suzy" and "Vince", which it replaces for the North American release, which also shuffles the track order.

Moontan (album): 83/100.