Americana UK Review Viking Moses 'Crosses'

The Viking Moses ‘Crosses’ is out on Poptones Recording Corporation on the 28th of August.  To get your own copy please click here.

Sinister and beguiling song cycle celebrates an odd love story

The Viking Moses (aka Brendon Massei) is yet another graduate from the school of Devandra Banhart. Riding the new wave of new folk with simple acoustic settings, intimate vocals and at times a childlike simplicity, he’s fashioned an album that worms its way into your head with its allusions to well remembered hymns and the use of repetitive structures. A song cycle based on a relationship Massei had with a muse named Emma, the album moves from songs he sang with her to post breakup musings and a yearning to rekindle their flame. Opening song “Still my Home” uses the tune and chorus from Michael Row Your Boat Ashore and lulls the listener into a false sense of security, wrapped in a familiar memory.

Overall there is a sense of a nostalgic longing to regain innocence lost personified in the idealised Emma. There are hints however that their relationship was not ideal with darker moments in some of the songs. “My Husband’s Hand” hints at a wives’ fear of her husband’s interest in children playing nearby as she promises to bear him one of his own. “Dancing By the Water day” has “our bodies grow close, then break away, and when they do, I’ll cry and pray…” “Whet Stones at Both My Sides” is a bare tale of denial with the singer describing the emptiness and loss of self following the end of a relationship and against all the evidence hoping for a reconciliation, a tremendous song. The album ends on another ambiguous note, a reunion with his soulmate but again the lyrics could be read as a fantasy or even a sinister replacement for the idealised, lost partner.
With delicate guitar, piano and occasional bass providing the backdrop, Massei’s voice is vulnerable, at times sounding like Will Oldham as he dips into childlike rhymes. A short (30 minutes) album, there are numerous highlights, the cantina styled piano that adorns several songs and Massei’s almost nursery rhyme type lyrics. Not as whimsical as Devandra nor as bleak as Oldham, The Viking Moses is an intriguing but rewarding listen.

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