40 minutes of low-key indie listening

German electro-folk group Milky Chance had a rise to fame in the form of their 2013 smash hit “Stolen Dance.” The track soared to the top of nearly every Alternative song chart and created a music video that has more than 500 million views. Unfortunately, the party bus stops there because the band has not seen quite the same reaction to their 2017 album, Blossom. The band, made up of Clemens Rehbein and Philipp Dausch, has only been creating music since 2012. With two studio albums under their belt, their next endeavor, Mind the Moon, comes from Ocean Sound Recordings in Norway.

The 12-track album starts with “Fado,” a track that takes musical influences from all over the globe. “Fado” meaning, “Portuguese folk song typically of doleful or fatalistic character and usually accompanied on the guitar,” is exactly what the boys express on the opener of the album. The chorus rings as “This is Fado” is repeated over a hauntingly meta beat. Aside from tracks like “Daydreaming” featuring Australian singer Tash Sultana and “Eden’s House” featuring South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the album blends together where you can’t hear when one song ends and another brings. “The Game,” though catchy and filled with reggae influences, could be mistaken for any alternative hit from the early 2000s. The album ends with the track “Window.” The track, again, sounds like what would be considered classic Milky Chance vibes. With lyrics like, “Thoughts are passing by outside my window/ thinking of the moments with you/ dreaming ‘bout the things we missed to do,” one could assume the song is centered around a lost love or an internal conflict of some sort.

Though by comparison, Mind the Moon isn’t Milky Chance’s most daring feat to date, it does give their listeners a taste of what could be to come in the future. By stepping out of their musical comfort zone, certain tracks on Mind the Moon deserve a second play. The group has gone platinum before, whos to say they could not do it again.