Bob Moses - Battle Lines

Bob Moses
Battle Lines
2018
Spotify

I've seen Bob Moses live a few times now. The first was at the El Rey in Los Angeles, an historic venue filled with ghosts of shows past that elevates any performer. They were incredible which spurred me on to see them again a couple of weeks later at Coachella. They played an afternoon set and the sun just doesn't do much for their moody slow burn style. The last time I saw them was at another historic venue, The Wiltern, and boy oh boy was it shit. I could not have been more bored and more disappointed with the show they put on. Their was zero energy and nothing to latch on to. For that reason Those shows all happened probably within a year of each other so my fervor for Bob Moses grew and died rather quickly. Their music straddles the line between indie and dance, and never makes a real decided choice to go one way or another and that is really where things start to break down. In a word Bob Moses are boring. You would expect their tracks to feel like edgy, moody and cutting works that pulled no punches, but that just isn't the case. For every nice melody they find they ruin it with boring lyrics, generic guitar solos and uninspired electronics. The moments where they should be screaming their lyrics or letting the music swell into something powerful just pass on by with little care or recognition. Bob Moses feel like they are just going through the motions before they have even established themselves at all.

This album as a whole feels a bit brighter than their last, but in doing so it looses a lot of the moodiness. Songs like "Back Down" end up being kind of catchy but almost fully devoid of any life or spark. You keep waiting for something new to spring up around the corner but every song sounds almost exactly the same. With all this in mind you are probably thinking "why should we care?", which is a fair point, if Bob Moses are such a drag why do people keep giving them a shot? The reason is potential. In these songs, hell in all of their songs there are brief moments that make you think they might have something. Those oppurtunities are almost always squandered, leaving you wanting something more or maybe just something else. "The Only Thing We Know" begins with this palm muted guitar then goes absolutely no where. Every songs ends up right back where it started and you end up dissatisfied with the whole endeavor. This may only be their sophomore record but Bob Moses already feel like they are sick of themselves. "Nothing But You" is probably the most uninspired track of the bunch just a slow meandering track that goes no where minus a small little electronic skitter of a bridge. Battle Lines is really anything but, there are no lines drawn here nor any crossed, just more generic indie electronica from Bob Moses.

4.8 out of 10