Belgian’s most talked about shoegazer’s, have announced the release of their new single, ‘Head of Stone’, the first track to be lifted from their debut album ‘Space’ coming this October.
Taking their name from an Elliot Smith album and based in Antwerp and Ghent, Newmoon formed in late 2013 and released their debut EP on Touché Amoré’s label Secret Voice/Deathwish Inc. The band members previously played in the much-loved hardcore punk band Midnight Souls. Though the two projects may superficially appear polar opposites, hardcore is nothing if not a genre built purely on dynamics, something this quintet have a masterful grasp of.
Having toured with bands all over Europe, such as Touché Amoré, Basement, Nothing and Cloakroom, to name a few, Newmoon return with ‘Head of Stone’, a song written on a Japanese bullet train, speeding between Tokyo and Kyoto. It’s an ode to how lost we become when traveling foreign lands with language barriers explains singer/guitarist Bert Cannaerts:“I realised that there's something very frightening about being in a place where you are unable to connect to people in any way. You cannot understand the language they are speaking; you can't understand any visual cues. This can make you feel isolated and invisible. The same thing can happen with emotional relationships. They get to a point where people become unable to communicate, and emotions and nuances are lost. This leads to isolation and resentment and people go their separate ways.”
Separating this band though will take some serious thought, as they come built with strong DIY punk ethic and have been friends since their mid-teens. All band members have matching tattoos, cite the likes The Jesus & Mary Chain, Slowdive, The Ramones, Oasis and Sunn o))) as influences and to them, everything is new, and this is the start of it.
Newmoon are: Bert Cannaerts (vocals/guitar), Giel Torfs (guitar/backing vocals), Philippe Corthout (guitar), Robby Geybels (bass) and Stef Gouwkens (drums).
