The Medium Mood

Who says you can't rock on a Wednesday? The Medium Mood kick off their tour at Ginger's Tavern on March 5 (with Play Guitar and The Establishment). Heading to Quebec and Ontario afterward, Andrew Gordon (bass, vocals) hopes to leave "ears bleeding." A larger tour follows this summer (Germany and US, holla). Gordon, Adam Hartling (drums) and Chad Peck (guitar, vocals) are bringing a camcorder with them. "Hopefully, a short tour doc should be available for streaming or download off the Noyes Records website shortly after," says Gordon. Besides the tour movie, he adds, fresh approaches to noisy post-punk are forthcoming. 


"It's pretty hard to do things that haven't been done before...without getting too gimmicky, but we've made some attempts (an organist, surround sound, seamless sets, re-imaginations of songs as different genres, experimental/avant-garde layering, samples) and now we're talking about getting into some computer-based manipulation of our performance," reveals Gordon. "Hopefully people can come away from our show with ideas. Plus, our new shirts are ballin', so maybe people could actually leave our show with some style. Sheesh." Are you going to let him insult you like that? Of course you're not.

-Stephanie Johns
- The Coast

I know what you're thinking: "there's only a couple weeks left in 2007, surely Shane is done with the Halifax-centric reviews for this year." Sorry friend, but I have one left in the tank. It comes in the form of The Medium Mood's debut full-length album, New Alarm. Granted, The Medium Mood is based in and around the Truro, Nova Scotia area, but I believe one or more of the band members have lived in Halifax in the past.

Not sure how many of our readers are familiar with Truro, which is a town about an hour away from Halifax, but the Medium Mood's brand of jarring, At The Drive In/Pixies influenced post-punk is not what I expected to be coming out of Truro. For starters, I don't hear nary a jug nor a washboard being used at any point throughout the album. I know that sounds like typical city-guy assholery, but my maternal grandparents lived in Stewiacke, a tiny town about 10-15 minutes from Truro which makes Truro itself seem like Paris. So I feel qualified to make that observation.

In reality, I kid. I just wanted to make a jug and washboard reference. Truro's a fine town which boasts my parents' favorite Fish & Chips spot and its high school football team is usually excellent. It also now boasts a fine indie rock band in The Medium Mood, which consists of Chad Peck on guitar, Andrew Gordon on bass, and Adam Hartling on drums. Peck and Gordon also share the vocal duties. The trio was formerly known as Safety Scissors until some electro-indie character with the same name threatened them with sueage, and The Medium Mood was born.

I'm not sure if that name was intended to be ironic, but there isn't much medium about the mood created on New Alarm (yikes that was pun-tastic). Despite being only three people, they manage to create the heavy, concussive sound of a much larger outfit. The satisfying crunch of Peck's guitar work often seems to be the showcase of their songs, but the bass & drums play a major role in propelling the songs along. The duelling vocals of Peck and Gordon (alternating between singing/yelling/screaming or sometimes all of that at once) also contribute to the largeness of the band's sound.

The Medium Mood is clearly fond of the soft-loud-soft song dynamic, and it's used to full effect on the powerful opening trifecta of Big Bang Theory, Inventor, and There's Nothing To See Here. The fantastic drumming of All The Names makes it not only a change of pace, but an album standout as well. Martha Kelly (of Halifax's Murder She Wrote) adds her trombone to the cacophony of Warning and it adds a subtle wrinkle that also makes this song a standout. The slow burning Focus On The Trajectory uses the line "Debutantes and Squires, I've seen this before, so let's get it on", which is an enjoyable line, before it closes with an frenetic and enjoyable climax. Clearly an enjoyable song. Aleatoric and The Isonomy earn bonus points for prompting me to reach for the dictionary on back to back songs ("characterized by chance or indeterminate elements" and "Equal law or right; equal distribution of rights and privileges" respectively if you're interested).

I like a band that pays attention to detail, and The Medium Mood's well-written, five page bio which accompanied their album as well as their album release show at the Marquee which they configured to be in surround sound suggest this is a band which is concerned with details. I also like any band that reminds me of Wintersleep, who released one of my favorite albums this year, and this album reminds me a lot of some of Wintersleep's earlier work. I read an interview with Wintersleep recently where they said Tony Doogan (who produced their latest album) mentioned something about them "hiding their hooks", and I think at times The Medium Mood could perhaps peel back some of their layers and give the melodic aspect of their songs a chance to shine. That being said, these guys are very proficient players and that has resulted in a very satisfying album. I found myself head-nodding my way through most songs and that's never a bad sign. This is a band I'll be keeping my eye on, you should do the same. - www.herohill.com

You can use euphemisms such as gear heads all you want, but Adam Hartling, The Medium Mood's drummer, sums it up: "We're all geeks." And fuck it, if there's anything wrong with that. It's why they have a team of audio pros setting up extra speakers at the Marquee for their upcoming record-release show on November 23—an attempt to create a unique stereo surround-sound experience that Hartling typifies as "sounds delaying and swirling around the room."

Originally starting out under the name Safety Scissors, Hartling, Andrew Gordon, Tim MacLeod and Chad Peck found themselves in need of a name change once a German artist of the same name issued the band a cease-and-desist order. The new name, a line-up change and Gordon moving from guitar to bass occurred almost simultaneously.

The band toured most of eastern Canada this past year, playing with the likes of Thundra, VKNGS, Buried Inside, Holy Fuck and fellow Truro denizens Instruments. Never stagnant, The Medium Mood plan to follow up the release of New Alarm on Peck's label with spring and summer tours and with writing more music in the lull time. "Truro sort of forces you to create," says Hartling. "There's not much else to do besides work your job, then go make music." - The Coast

he Medium Mood
New Alarm
Rating 3.5/5

By Dean Lisk

If you've never heard of The Medium Mood before, then you haven't been spending time near the loud amps of Halifax bars - a sound the band captures on its recent and aggressive release, New Alarm.

The threesome features Adam Hartling on drums, Andrew Gordon MacPherson on bass and vocals, and Chad Peck providing guitars and vocals. They originally went under the name Safety Scissors, but a band in Europe uses the name.

The LP - it is being officially released at a show at The Marquee Club tomorrow - is a follow up to its EP, Fugitives.

New Alarm opens up dramatically with the song Big Bang Theory. It's math music - computer rock - with bass, guitar and piano equations. The instruments working overtime to find out what 'X' equals.

"Prepare, assemble devices program couldn't calculate itself into variables," the band sings in its non-linear style on Inventor. "Get an application to file your remains."

The song All the Names opens with a constant drum beat that is later joined with an aesthetically laced guitar strum and melodic feel. It's among the best of the album's 12 tracks. - The Halifax Daily News

It's been a bit of a rocky road for Nova Scotia's The Medium Mood. Until now. Formerly known as Safety Scissors, the band describes the recording session for their first album as “a comedy of errors.”

It started with some flat tires and equipment problems. Then, after releasing their first album Fugitives in 2005, the guys were contacted by a remix/electronic artist in Europe claiming that they both had something in common. Their name. “He found us on MySpace and gently suggested we change our name,” guitarist/vocalist Chad Peck says. “This didn’t happen, and so he told us he had his lawyers prepared to take legal action if our name was not changed. We decided we had better bow out gracefully, and after about three months, we were known as The Medium Mood.”

But misfortune was not through with them just yet. While working on songs for their second album in 2006-2007, Peck returned home to find his computer would not turn on. The hard drive hosting all of the edits and new guitar tracks was dead. Luckily (but $400 later), the tracks were recovered. The result is New Alarm, a mix of aggression, melody, interchangeably loud and quiet guitars, feedback, pop hook, and yup, you guessed it...a trombone! The album was influenced by bands such as At The Drive In, Sonic Youth Pixies and My Bloody Valentine.

In addition to Peck, the band consists of drummer Adam Hartling, who also took on art direction for "Fugitives" and Andrew Gordon Macpherson on bass/vocals. The album has been released on Noyes (pronounced "noise") Records, an independent label founded by Peck himself. The "do-it-yourself" approach of these guys is admirable, as one can imagine how much extra work is put in. This truly shows the passion they have for what they do.

Voted as one of Halifax's top bands to keep your ears on, The Medium Mood has shared the stage with local music heroes Wintersleep, as well as Holy Fuck, Brian Borcherdt, INSTRUMENTS, VKNGS and Buried Inside. Friday, November 23rd they will own the stage. The release of their first LP will deliver a whole new flavor of live performance as it will be done in surround sound with ten speakers strategically placed throughout The Marquee "pulling bodies in all directions as specific sounds are swept around them". Joining them on stage are local favorites Tomcat Combat, Play Guitar, and I See Rowboats. Definite ear candy.

New Alarm is available now at noyesrecords.com and zunior.com. For more information check out www.myspace.com/themediummood. - Saint Mary's University Journal