No shoegaze on …XYZ, despite what some will tell you. A lot of soft vocals and reverberating guitars (and string instruments!) may evoke a calming sea (well, more of a lake, here) of sound similar to shoegaze, but there’s no distorted or noisy guitars here, as far as I could tell. Maybe a small section of “Sometimes Loving Is the Hardest Thing” and an even smaller section of “Screaming.” Very similar to The Jesus and Mary Chain, mostly in the vocals and lyrics, but also the generally-pleasant, reverberating guitar pop you’d hear on Darklands and Stoned & Dethroned.

Moose still end up having a sound of their own, though. They have a much more humble persona than the JaMC, and they use a wider variety of instruments in their songs, like the aforementioned plethora of string accompaniments such as violins, which I’m a sucker for. Great dream pop album; every song has a distinctive hook, like any good pop rock album should, usually by the song having a unique instrument. Check this out if anything here sounds interesting to you. My favorite song is “Little Bird (Are You Happy in Your Cage).”

There’s something childishly innocent and magical about this album, which is probably why it reminds me of Pete’s Dragon. I think I may even be underrating …XYZ. Only time will tell.