MP3 Review: Meredith Moon "Lo-Fi Songs to Cry to"

[Name Your Price // https://meredithmoon.bandcamp.com/album/lo-fi-songs-to-cry-to]

Well, Meredith Moon was not fucking around when she wrote the title for this album.   "Lo-Fi Songs to Cry to" is an collection of songs which has an overall feeling of sadness and loss, even if it isn't always right on the surface, and even if it doesn't make you cry it will make you feel something.

With a banjo or sometimes guitar, the songs seem to be all crafted by one person, creating them at the same time- so singing while playing a guitar or strumming a banjo, not going through and layering it with drums or pianos.   It has a pleasant melody overall to it, but it can get dark at times.   During the second song she really just screams it out and it kind of catches me off guard but sends shivers down my spine still.  (And oddly, I was thinking of the banjo on that song as sounding like Mumford & Sons, which I felt was cliche up until I heard her pour her soul out)

Then you reach a song like "Broken Bones", which seems to be about abuse and in some ways I feel like it could be an anthem for those who were abused and don't wish for others to find themselves in the same position.  Or maybe they just don't care what does or does not happen to other people and they just want to have someone to talk to who went through similar experiences-- I don't know-- but the line "What if I told you he hit me in the same way you did?" is pretty powerful.

"Words I" is mostly spoken word bits, seemingly spoken into a recording device and then patched together, though sometimes music is in the background of it all.   It still sounds like poetry to me and, yeah, for a minute or two the other week I thought about recording poetry and putting it up on Bandcamp.   "You're losing your mind and it saddens me" just goes to show you how far this album has come, though the fourth song also seems to be a mix of John Denver and Sheryl Crow as the acoustic guitar comes out.

The final song seems to be one of those "go big or go home" moments, where someone decided that if you're going to leave them wanting more you also have to leave this huge impression.   I wouldn't say that everything about the songs before "Lake Superior" is as sad and dark as this song, but "Lake Superior" hits all of the right notes to really make you feel sad no matter how great of a day you think you're having.    From finding that way to shift the blame to yourself to simply stating "Those who love me hate me too / And I'll never love again" pits this as the most powerful track not only on "Lo-Fi Songs to Cry to" but that I have heard in quite some time.

Do you have to be sad to enjoy this music?  No.  I think there is a certain level of talent in here that would appeal to fans of music in the same way that you don't have to be on drugs to listen to Pink Floyd.    But it helps.    I think I can just relate to this album too much and by the end all of the feelings just come flooding out.     Sometimes we need that cleansing though.