Moon Duo - Horror Tour EP

Horror Tour is the new EP from Moon Duo, who you may have seen mentioned on Popsiculture before.

It's a four-track sparkler of a composition, perfectly timed to coincide with Halloween - and it lives up to that billing well, with haunting sustained instrumentals and minor chords aplenty.

However, that doesn't mean this is purely background music for haunted houses - it's also a surprisingly mellow, laid-back EP of chillout tunes. If you've got a dark winter commute and need to pass the time, stick these songs in your ears and you'll soon be home.

High Points

At almost seven minutes in length, opening track Horror Tour takes you on a musical journey, and serves as a great launching point for the EP. Although the genre is very different, it reminds me of Richard Thompson's The Ghost of You Walks - haunting, musically complex and perfectly suited to the spooky theme of the title and release date of this EP.

Sickener, the third of four tracks on Horror Tour, hardly lives up to its name, instead delivering over ten minutes of iterative instrumentals - it's repetitive in the purest definition of the word, but by no means boring. Sickener is, again, spooky without being dull, and a great way to fill ten minutes with background noise that welcomes your attention when you can spare it, but does not overly intrude when you have other things to think about.


The Verdict

When I was younger, October used to be spent trying to write ghostly-sounding music in time for Halloween. My only problem was that I couldn't really play any instruments, and a really third-rate combination of keyboard and violin just didn't cut it. However, I can easily understand the delight to be found in putting together an EP like Horror Tour - a chance to create music a little different from the mainstream, without having to step into a totally different genre.

Moon Duo's creation is satisfyingly short, making it feel like a gem, rather than an indulgence. Despite that, with track lengths reaching over ten minutes, the total play time is enough to make the Horror Tour EP good value. With darker, colder nights drawing in, it's the perfect soundtrack to load on to your iPod and get that apocalyptic feeling that's always there waiting to be found when there's mist in your breath and ice crystals in the air.

Final Score: 90%