Recent release The Red Tree is an outstanding album from the fantastic Moneen, following up the Switcheroo split EP they released last year with Alexisonfire. Moneen have made a massive musical leap and The Red Tree really is something to behold.
The album kicks off with the magnificent sounding and just as cleverly titled Don’t Ever Tell Locke What He Can’t Do, a statuesque song that truly dazzles. This just begins to show us what Moneen are capable of and the rest of the album only builds on this and gets better and better. I find it almost impossible to decide on the best tracks as they are pretty much all anthemic, watertight monsters of songs. The music is grand and Kenny’s vocals are bursting with feeling and are pretty much flawless. I can just manage it though and I think that Bleed and Blister does stand out as an awesome, epic track with enough twists and turns to keep it active and exciting. The album closes on the beautiful The Song I Swore To Never Sing.
The Red Tree is perfectly orchestrated and carefully written, Moneen have put so much into this and as a result anyone listening to the album will get so, so much out of it as I have. This is without a doubt one of the best releases of this year.