Bang Chan, Lee Know, Changbin, Hyunjin, HAN, Felix, Seungmin, and I.N were in Atlanta for two nights as part of their 2023 “2nd World Tour MANIAC” (tickets are available here) which just touched down in the US after stops in Jakarta, Bangkok, Singapore, and a particularly joyful stop in Australia (Bang Chan and Felix are the group’s resident Aussies). Stray Kids, the eight-piece act out of JYP Entertainment in Seoul, can charm people in that way, regardless of demographics or age. Sure, he explains, he’s accompanying his teenage daughters to the show - but he can’t lie. I Only See the Moon can handle all of it.In a hotel bar in downtown Atlanta, a man approaching middle-aged leans over and asks, “Are you going to the show tonight?” After receiving confirmation that yes, I’m headed to the Stray Kids show at State Farm Arena, he excitedly shows off his shirt that features a fox design for the K-pop group’s youngest member, I.N. But the tenderness of “North Country Ride” does not dismiss the fraught elements of “Wheels and Levers”. The first time Ryan comes in on vocals in “North Country Ride,” gliding alongside Pattengale, creates the most assured, peaceful moment in the Milk Carton Kids’ now-storied catalogue. There are some moments of real beauty here. The song doesn’t need anything else to reach that height, so the band left it as-is. Pattengale and Ryan’s harmonies are joyous and evocative, inviting an impassioned singalong (yes, I have indulged). Meanwhile, the lead single, “Running on Sweet Smile”, has the gravity of a full-band affair while leaning only on the original duo arrangement. At the end of the solo, Pattengale scoots back down the ladder, giving up in time for a verse about love fading in time. But the marquee event is the instrumental break, in which Ryan’s accompaniment trends downwards as Pattengale’s solo endlessly and fruitlessly fights Ryan’s gravity as it climbs the minor scale. The vocal harmony is already something to write home about, with Pattengale using his falsetto to add drama to Ryan’s humble delivery. I Only See the Moon‘s highlight is “Wheels and Levers”. The idea is visible from multiple angles, shapeshifting depending on the narrative perspective and instrumentation: a genuine examination of the loneliness produced by fleetingness. Sometimes, this is something to rejoice in (“North Country Ride”), sometimes it presents an impending catastrophe (“Will You Remember Me”), and sometimes it signals eroding hope (“One True Love”). The most obvious example is the ending of “Wheels and Levers”, which ends on a melancholy rallentando, making space for the eerie string introduction to “I Only See the Moon” without a break in the action.īut subtler connections, like a recurring notion of the past and the future being as fragile as the present, run throughout I Only See the Moon. I Only See the Moon is a true album – each track knows about the other songs around it, gently pushing and pulling at their lyrical and instrumental angles. But they sound more like themselves than they ever have by being so selective about departures from the duo format. In the Monterey era, such additions would feel like sacrilege, the end of the Milk Carton Kids. Meanwhile, Ryan plays the banjo for the first time on a Milk Carton Kids album, giving “When You’re Gone” a slightly different feel than the group’s other uptempo tunes and “One True Love” a menacing lilt. The album closer, “Will You Remember Me”, gets a subtle bass part, while the title track features a subdued string section. This record is the culmination of the band’s work up until this point, and it is as transcendent in sound and feeling as it was in the process.Įxtra instruments are included tastefully on I Only See The Moon to highlight particular tracks. After 2019’s EP The Only Ones signified a return to the duo format, I Only See the Moon finds a middle ground: a selectively expanded instrumentation that enhances, rather than negates, the sentiments of Monterey. We didn’t get to find out how the Monterey approach might bring the group to new places. But with 2018’s All the Things That I Did and All the Things That I Didn’t Do, the group enlisted the help of a broader range of instrumentalists. It was an exhilarating turn for the Milk Carton Kids, a proper transition from duo to band. The sound turned endlessly back on itself, a tiny twilit universe of its own. While earlier releases offered a traditional duo format – Joey Ryan providing a rhythmic and harmonic foundation for Kenneth Pattengale to solo over – Monterey found the two guitarists integrating their sound, weaving in and around each other, building one unified landscape with just two instruments. ![]() ![]() ![]() On 2015’s Monterey, the Milk Carton Kids retreated inward.
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