Their music feels experimental but never amorphous; there are sturdy lines framing these compositions. Their individual voices are unique and indelible, and it might not seem as though they'll blend -- but then they do, and the harmonies are otherworldly. They are transcendent but discursive, emotive yet literary. They use acoustic instruments, brass, delicate percussion, pedal steel, guitar loops and a bowed banjo that sounds like a flute section playing slightly out of phase. The resulting product feels ruminative, bright and hazy, like an overexposed photograph of a condominium subdivision with the hot sun glinting off of blue glass.
Tris McCall - Courier News, New Jersey
Despite the generic title theyve attached to their official debut release, Philadelphia quintet Like Moving Insects make a joyously cracked and wildly diverse noise on Musical Album. Like a master chef rooting through a refrigerator full of leftovers, LMI makes a full course sonic meal from the musical scraps of a dozen different genres. LMI imagines a studio where Burt Bacharach produces klezmer bands (Executive Elevator) while Neil Young fronts Centro-matic in the next booth (A Cleanser) and Paul Weller hooks up with the folk/pop session players across the hall (A Grey, Boiling, Cartoon Cloud Song) just as a Pavement reunion breaks out in a lobby filled with acoustic instruments (Weve Come a Long Way Since Morning) and everybody gets together for a hootenanny jam at the end of the day (Fishing with Hounds). Mournful and laconic with an undercurrent of resigned joy, Like Moving Insects are human kaleidoscopes, fracturing their brightly colored knowledge of the disparate generations of folk, pop, country and rock into a beautiful and original new pattern.
Brian Baker - Amplifier Magazine
Theres a whole mess of ragged, achy grace to Musical Album, the debut LP from Philadelphias multi-instrumental five-piece Like Moving Insects. The albums so twangy, youd think these city boys had stumbled onto Grampys still. Heres to hoping the guys in the band have all their teeth.
The twang on this album is especially impressive considering the good ol boys from Like Moving Insects seem to have figured out a way to seamlessly bridge the gap between their countrified tendencies, which imbue the album with a bucolic pasture and pedal steel idyll and their own unique brand of tortured melodies. On Musical Album, sax, trumpet and moog take bowed banjo and pedal steel by the hand, round yer partner dosey do, and the result is a pretty darn original, if almost shockingly under produced, first album.
Ryan McCarthy - Delusions of Adequacy 1/31/2005
"I haven't felt that stimulated and relaxed at the same
time since i brought a hooker to Sizzler."
Brian Stewer
