Last week, this here show dealt with worms. Today, we will be dealing with moose. Specifically, Them Moose Rush, a Croatian alt-rock band that occasionally sounds a bit like Björk, but less suicidal.
Them Moose Rush are from the town of Bjelovar in Eastern Croatia. They've been around since 2012 and were soon hailed as one of the most talented young bands in Croatia. Today, their may not be as young anymore, but talented they continue to be.
If you've never ever heard of math-rock, well this is your lucky day. It turns out that math-rock is one way to describe Them Moose Rush. Not the only way, but it is what it is. Atypical time signatures and rhythmic structures, counterpoint, it all sums up into a really complex auditory experience.
Them Moose Rush have six albums to their name to date. Their inaugural release was titled to Future Miss Sunshine and dates back to October 2013. Fast forward to February of this year, with the release of Zepaxia, and they still challenge your perceptions of what a rock band sounds like.
Among other defining features of Them Moose Rush are relatively short songs. OK, so these are not a minute-and-a-half punk tracks but neither are they protracted discourses on the A-chord. To their credit, the band doesn't require an inordinate amount of time to showcase their musical and poetic skill.
Them Moose Rush not only write their own material, they use it on a meta-level as well. They drop hints, cyphers and riddles into their verses. They also direct their own music videos where they also use and reuse signature elements, like the man with the typewriter. All in all, they seem to know what they are doing.
Them Moose Rush are Nikola Runjevac, Marinko Komlen and Branimir Kuruc. And when asked to describe his band, Nikola once said that he'd like Them Moose Rush to sound like Led Zeppelin would have sounded in 2020s, but more pissed off. Which is as apt a description as you're even going to get.
And that's all the time we have for today. Check out Them Moose Rush on YouTube, Spotify and wherever you get your music from and Balkan Express will be back next week.
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Balkan Express brings you the latest and/or the greatest in music from the Balkans. On air every Tuesday at 11am on Ara City Radio, it is hosted by Aljaž aka @pengovsky who once did the world a solid and vowed never to sing again in public. Which is how he ended up doing radio