Moving Mountains There are moments when the members of Westchester, New York's Moving Mountains wonder if they should've been born a decade earlier. Their Triple Crown Records debut, Waves, harkens back to the early 2000s and finds inspiration from bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Engine Down, Cave In, and Further Seems Forever. "A part of us wishes we were a band that were emerging in 2001...but in a weird way, it motivates us to pick up where some of those bands left off," says frontman Gregory Dunn. Moving Mountains have sought to create something special, and Waves does an incredible job of proving that. The songs are teeming with resplendent, ethereal, guitar-driven atmospherics that slowly fade into your consciousness. Gregory Dunn co-founded the band as a studio project in 2005 with drummer Nick Pizzolato. Dunn and Pizzolato wrote and recorded a self-titled demo EP that was leaked to the public in early 2006 and was followed by 2007's Pneuma, which Deep Elm Records re-issued the following year. "After we put out Pneuma, we formed a band to perform those songs live, and that's when we got guitarist Frank Graniero and bassist Mitchell Lee," explains Dunn. That newly formed band's first collective effort would be Foreword, a dense, 36-minute four-song EP that they released in late 2008 on their own label, Caetera Recordings. By this time, bands like Thursday, Say Anything, The Dear Hunter and Polar Bear Club had begun championing the band and inviting them on the road. "The Say Anything tour was our first big, full U.S. tour, where we were playing in front of 1,000 people a day. We built up a ton of momentum and it just worked out. We've been so fortunate because it hasn't been about trying to sell our band on people -- it's been about trying to get in contact with them directly and then just crossing our fingers," Dunn says. The experience of watching crowds react to their basement creations heavily inspired them when they set out to begin work on Waves in late 2009. "Our goal with Waves was to have someone be engaged from the start to the end," declares Gregory Dunn. Engaged they will be. With Waves, Moving Mountains has produced a powerful collection of majestic, post-hardcore songs that contain a textured urgency that reaches farther and harder than any of their previous work. Lyrically, the album speaks of loss and faith, intertwining topics that Dunn has long dealt with. "When the band first started, a very close friend of mine passed away. That was one of the big motivations for all the lyrics on Pneuma. They're very figurative and overly metaphorical, because I was embarrassed to talk about it at that time. With Waves, I said to myself that it's the last time that I'm going to write about it, so I'm going to be really blunt, honest and straightforward about the subject. Pneuma, Foreword and now Waves have all been about that... a lot of it is also my struggle with understanding faith and existence... and just about questioning those ideas--and most importantly--how to overcome that to appreciate what you have." O'Brother Who is your influence? We all consciously or subconsciously think, speak, and act based on what influences us. We look for inspiration to get us through tough times while realizing our past experiences have a stronghold on how we now see the world. If you had the opportunity to sit down and reflect on what you believe and who you have become, your main influences will emerge. Imagine trying to capture this experience. You transcribe it for either your own pleasure or catharsis. Finally, you etch your name into this work that significantly represents a time in your life and release it. This is what O'Brother has gone through in creating their first full length, Garden Window. As major bands reunited, disbanded, or put out a new album for the first time in years, O'Brother realized the impact these artists have had on their lives and music. Mogwai, Deftones, Isis, Earth, Converge, Blonde Redhead, Oceansize, Clint Mansell, Torche, Radiohead, Sigur Ros and The Appleseed Cast are just a few of the artists that planted a seed that germinated while O'Brother was writing and recording Garden Window. In 2010, O'Brother's tour schedule started with a heavy onset of dates that never relented. They transformed into a much tighter live band due to constantly performing. At the end of the year, O'Brother began the writing process for their first full length. Drawing from their musical influences, the band also acknowledged the impact being on the road had had on them personally. Relationships with family, friends, and significant others altered dramatically due to touring. The readjustment to the normality of home life contradicted the escape from reality that touring presents. The tension created by this change needed to be captured as an influence on the new album. It is a daunting task to creatively represent how you have grown as a band compared to your previous work. Not only has O'Brother grown collectively, but individually as well, both musically and professionally. Native American tradition believed taking a picture of someone also took a piece of their soul. O'Brother views this album in the same vein. It captures a piece of them at a time in their lives that they will never get back. Caspian "Caspian is attempting to chisel away a little niche in the wall, swimming against the overwhelming tide of an increasingly overcrowded genre. "Tertia" succeeds in this endeavor surprisingly well... There is heavyweight contender status here." - OUTBURN $13.00 - $15.00