Shannen Moser pairs an arresting voice with vulnerable songwriting in a way that can quiet down the chattiest of rooms. Seeing them perform live this year has featured another reason to shut up and pay attention: new music. The songs Moser debuted this spring opening for Gregor Barnett of The Menzingers at Johnny Brenda’s, and performing with Sadurn, are some of their best, and today we have news of the new album they’ll be featured on.
The Sun Still Seems To Move is Moser’s third studio full-length, and is slated to build out their meditative sound with lush orchestrations. It’s somber and serene, and as Moser described it in a press release, a direct result of the tumultuous times in which they were writing and recording: “At a certain point I was like, let’s just go for it. Let’s just really lean into the sadness of the world. I really wanted to make a thing that I had never made before, because I was feeling a way that I had never felt before.”
The lead single, “Paint By Number,” pairs slow strums with slight touches of wind instruments and a serene rhythm section; it’s a low-key response to an unstable world, and as Moser explains, when writing and recording the album in 2020 and 2021, “things felt slow and in that I found a lot of comfort despite the sadness and uncertainty [of the world]. … This song is really an attempt at gratitude for the loved ones in my life and the experience of being able to quiet the darkness for one another.”
We see some of those loved ones in the song’s Travis Arterburn-directed music video: musical collaborators PJ Carroll, Tyler Carmody, and Tom Anthony strumming acoustic guitars, playing saxophone on a couch, plucking an upright bass in a hallway, as the camera sweeps around to show Moser sitting and singing at a window. Intercut with this are dreamy, idyllic scenes of nature: fishing from bridge, feeding ducks, swinging from a tree. It’s tender and tranquil, and you can watch it below.
The Sun Still Seems To Move is out September 30th via Lame-O Records, and can be pre-ordered here.