Do you know that kind of music that makes you want to be the artist’s best friend? moodring latest track “Poison” is so relatable and resonates so easily with us as listeners that I don’t recall a better way to put it.
If at the start the track resonates because of the acoustic guitar and the Mazzy Star-like background melodies, it continues with the vocalist tender storytelling vibes as the song grows easily. There are bits of Courtney Barnett in it, for sure, but there is a tenderness that also makes it sound more pop and more like candy to the soul. Well, when the chorus comes right in “you’re like poison to me lately” and intercalating with the most beautiful of the guitars continues “tell me that you love me baby” we’re just all over it. Melodically and in terms of soul commitment. It just speaks louder than everything. And you know that when that happens you’re in love with the song.
Adding to all of this the variations they introduce around the 2.45 makes “Poison” a track for multiple listens. There are vibes from folk, dream pop, synth-pop. You name it. And while everything sounds cohesive as f***, the tender vocals never lose their cadence and lightness. And the final build-up for the chorus is something out of this world.
moodring are Charli Smith (singer-songwriter) and Brandon Brewer (producer) who have been together for almost 6 years. They describe their sound as “just INDIE” and the reason is that they don’t like “to box ourselves in by “genre-lizing” our sound because we tend to use influences from everywhere, but I would say we’re somewhat of a mix between bedroom pop and indie rock with a modern 90s twist and also some weird country accents or something like that“. There are influences of Sheryl Crow, Soccer Mommy and Mazzy Star (as they also state as we read the press release after writing the first paragraphs of this post). They are both from Oklahoma and living in Oklahoma City. “Poison” is their second release of 2021, after 3 releases in 2019 and 2020. And for us, definitely a contender for “Song of the year”.
"Poison" was selected by the WtMM team to be included in our monthly updated Spotify playlist with the best recent tracks we covered. You can follow it here.