Moon Orchids delivers stately country rock ballads that explode into squalls of guitar noise, shards of trumpets embedded in their Crazy Horse-like roar. This first full-length, following the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based band’s Skin/Skein EP and a single, evokes Neil Young certainly but also the Band and, in quieter moments, Bill Callahan.
That Callahan reference derives in part from bandleader Jacob Simon’s hollowed out tenor, but also from his offhand grace with lyrics. The words are simple and straightforward, but they slant sideways revealing mystery beneath the skin. In “Gospel Tree,” one of this disc’s best cuts (Simon liked it enough to include it twice), the image of castrati monkeys singing falsetto is striking, this tossed off couplet is maybe…

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