Million Moons - I May Be Some Time

A Closer Listen

I’m just going outside and may be some time.  These were the last words spoken by Captain Lawrence Oates before he walked into the ice and snow and disappeared forever.  Considered an act of nobility, Oates’ sacrifice was made that his shipmates might survive.  I May Be Some Time remembers Oates, as well as other Antarctic explorers including Admiral Shackleton, whose quote “We were helpless intruders in a strange world” graces one track, while the ships Aurora and Terra Nova become the basis for others.

The race to the South Pole was fraught with delay and difficulty, which paled in comparison to the danger of becoming stuck in the ice, or striking out hundreds of miles in hopes of hitting an island, or starvation, or freezing to death, or gangrene.  Yet these explorers soldiered on, the saddest being Robert Falcon Scott, who finally reached the South Pole only to discover a note indicating that Roald Amundsen had gotten there a month earlier.

Million Moons packs their album with all the power and the pathos of the polar expeditions.  Like their debut album, I May Be Some Time rocks, but its greatest heights are reached in its moments of dynamic contrast, the most striking of which occurs in the title track in a quartet of screeches.  At other times, the post-rock crescendos recede to reveal gorgeous piano passages, like smooth sailing between icebergs, a break in the weather, a glimmer of hope.  But more than anything, the music captures the sense of nobility which history has granted all of these explorers, successful or not.  The opening “Terra Nova” yields no sense of what is to come; the music sounds triumphant, as if the expeditions has just begun, the ship left harbor with high hopes and achievable dreams.  When the drums come crashing in, the track achieves a sense of open-water majesty.  “Uncharted Waters” yields that same rush of hope, with a swift tempo and an upbeat tone.  The breakdown contributes a feeling of awe, as if one has reached the end of the map without incident, the sea a blank blue page.  We know things are going to turn; we just don’t know when.

The piano interludes of “Voice of the Wild” are indications that the men are settling in, that their initial excitement is now tempered with boredom, and perhaps a bit of doubt.  “Intruders in a Strange World” shifts from ambient to nearly metal, an indication that something may be amiss.  By the time the title track arrives, the explorers realize that they may be in over their heads; the screeches – the album’s loudest sounds – are their first warning that they may not be returning home after all.  But Million Moons, like eternal optimist Shackleton, refuses to dwell in dourness.  “Endure, Overcome” is a call to arms, a challenge “to be brave cheerily, to be patient with a glad heart, to stand the agonies of thirst with laughter and song, to walk beside death for months and never be sad.”  And while we can’t imagine that the explorer was never sad, his survival story continues to inspire.  In like fashion, I May Be Some Time challenges listeners to press onward, press upward, press toward the unknown, simply because it is there.  (Richard Allen)

Angry Metal Guy

“I am just going outside and may be some time.” These were Lawrence Oates’ last words as he walked into the wild of Antarctica, crippled by frostbite and looking, purportedly, to alleviate his doomed team of the burden of his body. I May Be Some Time, the sophomore album from U.K. trio Million Moons tells the tale of the Terra Nova polar expedition through synth-heavy instrumental post-metal. Relating a story in the absence of lyrics brings with it its own difficulties, but the band had success before; 2022’s A Gap In The Clouds dealt with the chronic progression of dementia, and similarly was a wordless endeavor. Can Million Moons capture the indomitable courage and harrowing despair of the fated explorers on I May Be Some Time, or will this album ultimately perish in the icy wilderness?

Post-metal is more of a qualifier than a genre, truth be told, but Million Moons do their best to make a sound of their own. While opener “Terra Nova” may trick the listener into thinking the band employs a crystalline, ambient approach, they quickly show they favor a brawnier, more immediate brand of post. The best comparisons here would be Caspian and If These Trees Could Talk, although there are passages of God Is An Astronaut-style EDM (“Uncharted Waters,” “Intruders In A Strange World”) and the cerebral, hemiola-laced djent of TesseracT (“Voice of the Wild”). The music oscillates between lush distant piano melodies braced against arpeggiated, heavily delayed guitars (“Terra Nova,” “Aurora”) and drum-driven passages that often triple-layer rhythms between the instruments for a sound that is at once chaotic while retaining metric rigidity (“I May Be Some Time,” “Endure, Overcome”).

I May Be Some Time by Million Moons

Million Moons excel at atmosphere-building and the contrast of icy light with digital dark. The band aren’t content with the patient building of thick chords that usually heralds post-metal; they pepper their songs with atypical harmonic shifts (“Uncharted Waters”) and odd-time drum patterns (“Intruders In A Strange World” “Endure, Overcome”). One’s tolerance for rave-style EDM and djentistry will mark how much enjoyment can be derived from I May Be Some Time; the band makes these sounds a cornerstone of the album. The drums are particularly intricate, lending a different rhythmic shape to each song, but run a little too complex against the rest of the instruments (“Terra Nova,” “Voice of the Wild”). Even with a modest DR 6, the music is undeniably pretty, with all the instruments occupying their own detailed space. Of note is that I May Be Some Time clocks in at a lithe 36 minutes; a veritable EP in the world of post-metal, one of the few genres where too little material may be a red flag.

I May Be Some Time often leaves the impression of excellent musical material that’s missing some time in development. Longer tracks do a good job of moving from section to section, careful not to overstay their welcome, but the melodic material never reaches payoff level, and the dynamics never really explode (“Uncharted Waters,” “I May Be Some Time”). Shorter tracks are more aggressive—read EDM/djent—filled with hooky grooves and frantic energy, but I miss development sections, secondary melodies, or extended guitar leads in their clipped runtimes (“Voice of the Wild,” “Intruders In A Strange Land”). But one-two punch “Endure, Overcome” and “Aurora” show what Million Moons can do when everything clicks into place. The former launches into slick polyrhythms and offbeat snare hits before transitioning into a triumphant major section, the eponymous “overcome.” And “Aurora,” a magnificent example of the instrumental long form, shows a patience in its development previously unseen on the record, twisting and climbing into a gorgeous, heartbreaking bi-chordal progression illustrating the final moments of the story’s protagonists.

As the album fades away, I’m left with an impression of what Million Moons are capable of over a pair of songs, but not an entire record. Listening back to A Gap In The Clouds it’s clear the band chose a more truncated and aggressive direction for this record, and that paid in both dividends and losses. I May Be Some Time makes for an enlightening distraction to the growls and shrieks of everyday metal life, and contains some real kernels of possibility for the young band. The bedeviled lot of you who are fans of instrumental metal should give this band a fair shake, and those of you who aren’t should check it out anyway, and expand your horizons past the Southern Seas and into the frozen unknown.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kb/s
Label: Ripcord Records | Bandcamp
Websites: facebook.com | Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: July 5, 2024

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