Second album for the Los Angeles trio, Uneasy Laughter features 13 coldwave-flavoured tracks reminiscent of Interpol or Joy Division. If all the tracks were of the caliber of “Ego” and “Make It Stop”, the two catchy post-punk firecrackers that start the album, we would have something really solid here. Unfortunately, Moaning move away from the shoegaze influences of their early days to branch out a bit more towards a dark, romantic alterna-pop. If this is an album of redemption for singer and guitarist Sean Solomon, who managed to fight the demons of addiction, it is also an album of abatement (all relative, of course), with guitars giving way to synths. Uneasy Laughter lacks the noisy and more syncopated side of the band’s first album, Moaning, released two years ago. Uneasy Laughter isn’t a bad record, but it would have been better were it a little less polished and studied.
