Uneasy Laughter
In 2018, Moaning emerged as a fully formed post-punk behemoth. The LA-based trio was bred in DIY venues, honing in on a modern goth update on traditional ’70s and ’80s post-punk. Their self-titled debut LP recalls a concoction of Television and Siouxsie & The Banshees, and on their second LP, they shed some of those more obvious tropes in favor of something more original and enthralling. *Uneasy Laughter* is at once more streamlined than its predecessor and more complex. Pascal Stevenson’s basslines now coil around Sean Solomon’s vocals without ever suffocating the darkly observant lyrics. “We used to care, but we forgot,” he sings on the album’s opening track “Ego.” Later, he adds, “Narcissism is not empathy.” Drummer Andrew MacKelvie’s performances here are more often programmed than not, but the sterility of the electronic percussion lends the album an air of foreboding.
What happens when an abrasive rock trio trades guitars for synths, cranks up the beats and leans into the everyday anxieties of simply being a functioning human in the 21st century? The answer is Uneasy Laughter, the sensational second Sub Pop release from Los Angeles-based Moaning. Vocalist/guitarist Sean Solomon, bassist/keyboardist Pascal Stevenson and drummer Andrew MacKelvie have been friends and co-conspirators amid the fertile L.A. DIY scene for more than a decade. They are also immersed in other creative pursuits — Solomon is a noted illustrator, art director and animator, while Stevenson and MacKelvie have played or worked behind the boards with acts such as Cherry Glazerr, Sasami and Surf Curse. On Uneasy Laughter, they’ve tackled challenges both personal and universal the only way they know how: by talking about how they’re feeling and channeling those emotions directly into their music. “We’ve known each other forever and we’re really comfortable trying to express where we’re at. A lot of bands aren’t so close,” says MacKelvie. Adds Solomon, who celebrated a year of sobriety during the Uneasy Laughter sessions, “Men are conditioned not to be vulnerable or admit they’re wrong. But I wanted to talk openly about my feelings and mistakes I’ve made.” Moaning’s 2018’s self-titled Sub Pop debut featured songs mostly written in practice or brought in already complete by individual band members. It garnered acclaim from Pitchfork, Stereogum and Los Angeles Times, who observed, “Moaning craft anxious music for an increasingly nervous local scene.” But Uneasy Laughter is a collaborative breakthrough which significantly brightens Moaning’s once claustrophobic sound, again abetted by producer/engineer Alex Newport (At The Drive-In, Bloc Party, Melvins). The trio points to first single “Ego,” which features a costume-heavy video directed by Ambar Navarro, as an embodiment of this evolution. Solomon admits Uneasy Laughter could have gone in quite another direction had he not gotten sober and educated himself on such core subjects as gender and mental health. “I did a lot of reading in the tour van — authors like bell hooks, Mark Fisher, and Alain de Botton, all really inspired me. I don’t want to be the person who influences young people to go get high and become cliche tragic artists,” he says. “What I’d rather convey to people is that they’re not alone in what they think and how they feel. ‘Ego’ specifically and the album overall is about those themes — letting go of your bullshit so you can help other people and be present.” “We want to be part of a community,” he adds. “I wrote online about being sober for a year, and I had kids from all over writing and asking for advice. One of them said, ‘For the first time I can remember, I didn’t drink last night.’ I thought, for once, maybe we did something besides sell a record. That’s a win. That’s incredibly exciting.”
'Uneasy Laughter' sounds an awful lot like a string of long-lost Joy Division and New Order tracks, unearthed and archived…
Moaning's self-titled 2018 debut was an astonishingly focused set of noisy post-punk songs filled with scathingly bitter lyrics that attempted to uncover the problems behind faulty relationships.
Moaning offer grownup dream pop on their sophomore release, Uneasy Laughter. With its often bright, and chill nature, the album is a fitting...
“I've been sober for a year today,” Sean Solomon, Moaning’s frontman, wrote on Instagram last year. “I am finally finding
Uneasy Laughter by Moaning, album review by Adam Williams. The Los Angeles trio's second album for Sub Pop, comes out On March 20th
The LA band’s second album boasts an expansive sensibility and attractive influences