Demos

Moon Face - Folked Up Beyond Recognition

Bill Cummings 00/00/0000

Rating: 3/5

Singer songwriters: the music world seems to be populated by them right now. At the last count I received over ten albums of singer songwritery tunes in the last few weeks. They range from poor; think the cheesy Radio 2 style of Damien Rice, and the annoyingly “Beautiful” Mr James Blunt, to the ones who are doing something individual and unique namely the likes of Bright Eyes and Rufus Wainwright. Thus the prospect of reviewing another singer songwriter strikes fear into the sternest faced reviewer.
Moon Face is the work of 23-year-old solo artist Rhodri Welsh. Mr Welsh was well known on the South Wales scene for fronting the rock band “Nim Chimpsky”. During a stint in University his song writing took on a more folk based bent, he started writing songs for himself and eventually gained the attention of others. Thus he presents his debut solo release “Folked Up Beyond Recognition”. Opener “Hazelmere” is gorgeous, world-weary vocals and a broken-hearted strum, and harmonica line, its tragic romanticism recalls the early work of Bright eyes. “A Little Bit Louder” features similar tumbling carefully picked arpeggio guitar notes, and a bittersweet set of lyrics, the highlight of this song comes with the extra female voice near the end of the track lifting the song to another more interesting place, it starts to resemble the soundtrack to a summer sunset. One minor criticism I will make of this is track, is that his lyrics seem to range from the sublime (“Sing for me just this one time/But a little bit louder”) to the ridiculous (“Do you remember Rosey And Jim?”) Last track “I Cry” is a slightly more sombre affair, with some emotional melancholic vocals and a weary strum it reminds me of the work of many alt country singer songwriters around right now and thus it doesn't really stand out.
Overall a good debut EP, clearly Mr Moonface has promise and a talent. I think if he continues to progress with his brand of honest singer songwriter style tunes he will continue to gain a fan base.

http://www.myspace.com/moonface