We Landed on the Moon: These Little Wars

We Landed on the Moon
These Little Wars
Self-Released
2008-08-13

This second album from Louisiana’s We Landed on the Moon provides a rush of hard-edged pop, dense onslaughts of slanting guitar cut with florid female vocals. There’s a 1980s aura hanging over the whole enterprise, from the shimmering guitars that recall U2 to the estrogen-fueled, new wave angst of Melissa Eccles’ voice. She’s a pop diva with a bit of edge, slipping American Idol-worthy vibrato into the long crescendos, toughness and attitude into the staccato choruses. A flute-y fluidity in “Vietcong” might put you in mind of the Motels’ Martha Davis, but the all out wail of “Re: Your Letter” is more in the line of Pat Benatar. Like both those artists, Eccles is a little too emotive, a little too slicked over with pop to achieve real resonance, but if you like super energetic, angsty 1980s-style tunes about failed love affairs and unsatisfactory men, this is your ticket.

RATING 5 / 10