Bravery, The - The Sun and the Moon Complete (Album)
Indie kids of the world unite! The Bravery have landed. The Sun and the Moon Complete is an ambitious project and concept album that hits the mark over and over again and still leaves you wanting more.
My internal cynic did have to check with my internal optimist before making this (quick large) call though. Asking, “Is this an album of pure musical intent or just a brilliant marketing ploy to extract a few more sales from hapless fans?” lucky for all, it’s definitely the former with maybe only a smidgen of the latter.
I’ll bring you up to speed. The Bravery first released the Sun and the Moon mid-2007, but this is The Sun and the Moon Complete, a two CD version of the same album done twice. Confused? I’ll try to clarify it a bit. The Sun and the Moon Complete is an attempt to showcase the two sides of the band and their music. Firstly, The Sun (disc one, the original release first mentioned) is more of a standard rock and acoustic instrument oriented album covering a sound that the band embraced after doing the electro-pop thing “to death” on their earlier albums. Disc two, The Moon, is the exact same songs in the same order to reflect the original synth-laden and DIY sound of the band.
Track 2, Believe and track 6, Time Won’t Let Me Go have already been releases as singles are and garnering impressive radio support. Track 12, The Ocean is a prime example of the Bravery’s quality writing, and if you needed any confirmation of that it’s recently been used on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. If that’s not a measure of a quality song then I don’t know what is! (Sorry, that was really more of a visual joke as I have quite a sarcastic grin on my face at the moment.)
So all in all, this is 24 tracks of… Or is that 12 tracks x 2? Anyway, this is a double album that works. The songs are great and the concept is great. The packaging and artwork is top notch too, with “oh so cool” retro style photos and rock’n’roll artwork. My only beef is that now I love them so much I’m devastated I missed them on their recent Australian tour.
Indie kids, the Bravery are our saviours and The Sun and the Moon Complete is our manifesto.
