High Ball Me

Moose | Format: MP3 Download

Product Details

• Original Release Date: August 11, 2000
• Label: Le Grand Magistery
• Copyright: 2000 Le Grand Magistery, LLC
• Total Length: 38:56
• Genres: Alternative Rock/Indie & Lo-Fi, Pop/Pop Rock
• ASIN: B000S59Q02
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,754 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rare band, August 31, 2000

By 

Timothy Taylor (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Ball Me (Audio CD)

Moose are an enigmatic treasure. Their four albums "xyz..." "Honey Bee" "Live A Little Love A Lot" and now "High Ball Me!" (plus an assortment of ep's and compilation tracks) represent one of the finest discographies in the history of popular music, and yet the combination of industry blindness and their inability to self-promote have kept them in cult-status obscurity for the past nine years. That is unlikely to change with the improbable (who among their longtime fans could have expected them to still be making a go of it in the year 2000?) release of "High Ball Me!" even though it's a marvelous collection of intricate songs and subtle soundscapes. Tracks as delicate as "Lily la Tigresse" and "The Only Man in Town" deserve better (as do all of Moose's output from the opening moments of "Jack" in 1991). If you like well-crafted, eccentric, lovingly produced pop music (Pale Fountains, House of Love, Nick Drake, Trash Can Sinatras, Boo Radleys, Pale Saints, Galaxie 500, Shrimp Boat, Felt, Feelies, etc.) Moose will not disappoint. And you'll have their entirely splendid back catalogue to explore once you fall in love with "High Ball Me!"

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A musical gem just waiting to be discovered!, April 27, 2003

By 

Rick Taylor (Silver Spring, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Ball Me (Audio CD)

What a beautiful album this is! If I had read about the different sounds and influences on this recording prior to hearing it, I wouldn't have thought it would work. How in the hell could bongos, goofy organ sounds and spaghetti-western guitar melodies go together with dark and moody British guitar pop? I know it sounds bizarre, but these influences meld together seamlessly on this album.

Moose's "High Ball Me!" simply has to be heard to be believed. Not only for its off-kilter amalgamation of diverse influences, but for the sheer quality of the songwriting contained within. This is pop music of the absolute highest order. Each song on this album has been meticulously and painstakingly crafted with so much love and attention to detail it is staggering. You can tell that the bandmembers of Moose are truly in love with the artistic possibilities of pop music and revel in writing and recording (why else would they continue doing it when obviously no one knows who they are?). It is truly a shame that this album has been completely overlooked by the media and music fans alike (they have no idea what they're missing!).

As far as highlights from the album, I would say the entire album is one long highlight. This is one of those rare records where every track is just as brilliant as the one before it. In fact, I would easily award this record Album of the Year for 2000.

After starting things off with a creepy intro that uses a sample from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", the listener is catapulted into Moose's vision of rock via "Can't Get Enough of You." The track is propelled by some energetic bongo playing, imaginative bass lines, the aforementioned spaghetti-western guitar playing, and probably the creepiest background female singing ever recorded. On top of all of this, we have the main vocalist in Moose, Russell Yates (a deadringer for The House of Love's Guy Chadwick, btw), with a darkly rich and deep voice that carries an ominous flair. Perhaps what is most intriguing of all is how Moose integrates all of these sounds and ideas into a single song and never have it come across as sounding contrived or forced in any way.

The rest of the album is just as brilliant. "Lily La Tigresse" features some truly beautiful melodies via a violin, "Won't Look for Love" demonstrates Moose's appreciation for vintage Felt via some sophisticated and very melodic guitar arpeggios, while "The Only Man in Town" and "There's A Place" show the band at their most tender and emotionally moving.

This is just brilliantly written music any way you look at it. I am so glad that I purchased this (I had never even heard of Moose until summer 2002). I consider myself a richer person for having this CD in my collection.

Recommended for fans of melodic, indie/alt rock such as Belle & Sebastian, The Smiths, House of Love, The Go-Betweens, Felt, Trembling Blue Stars, etc.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine return for one of the best pop bands around, September 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: High Ball Me (Audio CD)

Where have Moose been for the last five years?? Well, it seems they felt they didn't have enough schooling in pop music and went back and perfected their craft even more because they have returned with an impressive collection of tracks for this, their fourth proper album. This won't surpass 1995's "Live A Little, Love A Lot", but it does contain some very good songs. The album begins with "A Starting Point", which sounds like it should have been written for a David Lynch dream sequence. Background voices and twangy "old-west" guitars. Then the album takes off with one of the band's best tracks to date - "Can't Get Enough of You". This song uses ghostly operatic background vocals (to great effect) and congo drums, a driving beat and a winning chorus. It's much more aggressive than their usual stuff. "The Only Man In Town" is another winner which could easily have felt home on "Live A Little..." And "Pretend We Never Met" is destined to be a Moose classic - a perfect melody and those wonderful guitars carrying it through all the way. No one writes gentle, sad, beautiful melodies like Moose and "High Ball Me" proves it. There may be only a handful of people who know about this band but Moose's perserverance from their days as one of the ethereal pop bands of the early '90s is unbelievable. Practically all of their peers from that time have faded - Lush, Ride, Chapterhouse, Slowdive, Pale Saints, and most recently Boo Radleys. But Moose remains standing and pop music is the better for it.