By Dean Wolfe, prog dog Media (album released Feb. 2023)
Citrus Moon are a 4 piece instrumental band out of Chicago. They will appeal to many a progressive rock fan (King Crimson fans for certain) as well as math rock fans (I will be video-interviewing the band and will post a link below when it's done).
Based on my ears alone I can tell you electric guitar is prominent in this band: with 2 guitars, bass and drums being the substance of it. The players are Demetri Bairaktaris, Kevin Polochak, Seth Beavis, and Patrick Stevens. The songs are dynamic and full of punctuations like '!', '!!' and '*'. The songs are very memorable and distinct despite there being no singing. Each tune covers much territory. Citrus Moon sound extremely tight and move along like a single giant Mecha robot. Each song is a varied story like on 'Los Lunas', they move through rock passages and into almost Caribbean detours. There seems no limit on these guys: they move freely from riff to melody to tension-building passages. The drummer breathes and fluctuates with the band as well as pinning songs solidly to the ground.
I even detect kind of African influences in the guitar work- there being plenty of clean electric guitars as well as distortion soaked segments. Guitar geeks will obsess over where single coil and bridge pickups were employed, what the hammer ons were, what amps did the guys use etc etc. But overall it's a fun and appealing album that I would even rate high on the 'girlfriends/wives will like it' chart (a 'plus' for many of us dudes who like to listen to a wide variety of musical experimentations). There's even an orchestral string flash in 'Dark Rainbow'.
Overall the album feels quite playful as well. Not to be outdone, the bassist does get aggressive at times with his tones, and reminds me of the legendary Tony Levin.
There's no outright heavy-metal vibes with the band. They play it restrained and the melodies emerge naturally.
In summary I'd say these guys are explorers. The album is rich, very rich- with both simple and intricate musical concepts and ideas. They have a great chemistry and I would run, not walk, to any gig that I could attend. This is what the world needs more of today: bands! Real bands! Bands that play together and stay together, exploring musical territories together. This album earned a well-deserved 4 out of 5 bones on the prog dog charts.
Prog dog interview link: https://youtu.be/s_5CJqWrEDc?si=g730c-5s_h1gUac1
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