If the best art comes from pain, then Mossbreaker’s debut LP, Between the Noise and You, should be hanging in the Louvre. Self-produced and mixed over the course of a year by the alt-rock trio at their home studio in Los Angeles, the album comes in the wake of singer/guitarist, Gabe VanBenschoten’s father’s death. The result is a raw expression of the human experience told through powerful, haunting, diverse layers of musicianship.

By hacking through the thick layers of effect-laden guitars, understated-yet-dominant bass and commanding, hard-hitting drums, one quickly gets to the heart of the matter on Between the Noise and You. The album opens with “Song for My Father,” a modern-day dirge that sets the tone for the heavy beauty to come. It’s followed by “Dissolve,” a Deftones-esque driving march that conveys VanBenschoten’s feelings of loss, with lines like, “I want to hold your hand / As you disappear.” That moves into the title track—a droning detuned, would-be radio hit layered with eerie guitar leads and driving rhythms. And “Shamer” is yet another heavy-hitter with a formula of minimalist verses flowing into catchy, larger-than- life choruses that’ll dig into listeners’ brains and take up residence there.

With each subsequent track, Mossbreaker creates a sonic masterpiece that blends energetic ‘90s-influenced rock, melancholy dream pop and shoegaze-soaked post-rock. Overall, it’s raw, yet composed; it’s mournful, but aggressive; it’s meticulous, yet sounds absolutely massive.

Track Listing: 
01. Song For My Father
02. Dissolve
03. Between the Noise and You
04. Shamer
05. Terrestrial Dream
06. Dramamine
07. Runway
08. Side Effects
09. Return to Splendor
10. Eighty
11. Into Forever