Cincinnati, OH's Mosant has released their debut full length record 'Midnight Televison,' read on below to learn more about this new group's stellar debut effort. Words by Andy Hittle.
The conventional wisdom about discographies asserts that most debut albums go one of two ways. They are either hastily made before a band has fully formed its identity, or they feature songs that a band has had the luxury to carefully craft for years before committing to tape. Cincinnati-based four-piece Mosant is the rare band that has found a third path: writing and recording an album with staggering speed and confidence and emerging as one of the best pop-rock bands in recent memory.
Originally formed as a vehicle for vocalist/bass player Chandler Hoffert’s propulsive songs, Mosant released the killer double-single “Critical” / “(Not the) Only One” in 2022. Coalescing into its current configuration in the spring of that year, the band shifted into a rich collaborative mode, finding beautiful common ground and compelling friction in a four-way partnership that mischievously mashes buzzy power-pop hooks, prog-rock left turns, bighearted soul, and sumptuous harmonies. The resulting debut, Midnight Television, recorded at Cincinnati’s Marble Garden with Isaac Karns, perfectly captures the spitfire energy of a young band while confidently absorbing 60 years of pop music.
For the uninitiated, album opener “Can’t You Tell” is a perfect introduction to Mosant’s sticky guitar rock. Insinuating itself with a few evocative arpeggios, the band skitters into a New Wave verse before blowing out a joyful chorus that fuses an Earth, Wind, and Fire groove and a sweet McCartney-esque melody, The band fondly remembers writing the tune’s climactic dual-melody chorus. “As soon as that song was finished, we knew it was the opening track” – the perfect calling card. The warped boogie of “3AM” and the sinuous “Got It” expand on the opener’s promise, weaving in drummer Nathan Hoeweler’s deft rhythmic complexities with instantly classic guitar hooks, Zach Swelbar and Joey Gibson’s ambient detours, and audacious collisions of tone and texture. In this triple shot’s eleven minutes, the band has scampered through a dizzying number of genres and sly homages with joyful abandon.
Like any good album sequence, the next two songs find Mosant easing back on the bpm and shifting into yet another gear. “Ninety-Five” somehow collides Everly Brothers’ close harmonies with Freddie Mercury’s grandeur, shamelessly exploding into a stately descending chorus before tripping into a spooky outro “recorded in two takes on an old hand-held recorder.” The whole arc of the song seems like a sincere rehabilitation of the long-neglected power ballad. “Whispered Words” a three-minute acoustic detour featuring a lovely Joey Gibson solo, builds into a layered evocation of Big Star and The Posies at their most bittersweet, while remaining wholly original and contemporary. Says the band, “‘Whispered Words’ is one that Zach had been sitting on for a few years. He’d play it every once in a while and we’d beg him to let us put it on the record. After some convincing and a few changes to the verse, we tracked it.”
Crunchy stomper “Sympathy” again showcases Mosant’s tendency to avoid easy classification. A heartland rocker at its core, the song is too restless to follow an easy template, instead generously blends in sun-dappled background vocals, badass dueling lead guitars, startling tempo shifts, and a soul-stirring lighter-in-the-air coda. In the album’s final stretch, “Goodbye” and “When I’m Down” pair nicely to further demonstrate Mosant’s canny musical language. While the band is quick to embrace their modest midwestern lineage, the vocabulary of these songs reveals an urbane musical sophistication. For every indelible crowd-pleasing earworm, the band can’t resist folding in exhilarating head-fakes with harmonically rich chord voicings, whiplash turnarounds, and Chandler Hoffert’s beautifully sinuous vocals that slingshot between rockist growl and soulful falsetto.
Midnight Television concludes with the evocative “Tangled Affair,” which plays like a suite of Mosant’s strengths. By turns delicate and sinister, the song prods Mosant out of their clever power-pop into something a bit darker. “Joey came up with the intro guitar part and Chandler and Zach took it from there with the verses and chorus. That was one that we were really proud of when we finished.” And like many Mosant songs, it resolves with an enthralling outro, as if the band has so many ideas, they have to augment a typical pop structure. “Tangled Affair” spins to a close in a haze of psychedelic guitars, burbling synths, pining vocals, and a menacing sound collage like a half-remembered dream.
As a rock record in 2024, Midnight Television is a stunner by any metric. But as a debut from a new artist, Mosant’s record presents itself as a sure-footed and endlessly fun document of a band in ascendance. As the first entry in what is sure to be a deep and varied discography, Mosant got it right the first time out.
You can order your very own copy of Midnight Televison NOW!
Available on LP, CD, and Digital Download on Bandcamp.
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