The Plural of Moose is Moose
You know how sometimes you discover something very few people know about, a song with a few hundred streams, a game that’s criminally underrated, a book that almost no one knows about, and you sort of fall in love with that work of art. It might really be an amazing song or book or game, but I think the fact that no one else knows about it makes it all the more special.
I listen to The National Parks a lot, a folk-pop band from Utah. Spotify sometimes lists an album called National Parks as theirs, but they actually had nothing to do with it.
The album is actually called Happy Belated, and National Parks was the name of the band, but it’s listed the other way round on most music streaming services. It is also their only album. Going down the internet rabbit hole, all I could find were a few articles praising the band (1, 2), one of which(1) claimed that the band merged with Cars & Guitars to form Valley (a pretty cool alt-pop band) in February of 2014, which is also mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Valley although that doesn’t explicitly name the two bands. The leading vocals on National Parks are pretty easily recognizable as Valley’s lead singer Rob Laska.
Anyway, I’ve wanted to write about Happy Belated for a while now. I’ve recently started listening to songs a lot while writing or working on something, and I’ve noticed that there’s something very specific about some songs that makes them perfect for zoning out to, and these tracks fit into that niche perfectly (I’m listening to them while writing this).
At the same time, they’re truly beautiful songs that deserve to be paid attention to. It feels like they’re trying to tell a story that I know nothing about, as indie songs often do. The guitar pairs well with the angsty, pensive lyrics. The music seems like it’s building up to an upbeat chorus, but it’s almost melancholic at times, although most of the songs do have a memorable chorus. There is a slight noise throughout, which adds to the angsty feeling.
The songs seemed to blend in the first few times I heard them. It was difficult to tell them apart, but now that I’ve had them on repeat for a few weeks now, I’ve grown to love every individual track. They all have a different feel to them. The Plural of Moose is Moose stands out for me, maybe because it’s the first song on the album that I heard, but also because it seems like a more traditional pop-rock track compared to the rest of the album.
The songs on this album are actually rerecorded versions of the original tracks, but I couldn’t find those anywhere since the band’s Bandcamp page is now defunct. If anyone finds those, please tell me.
Go check out the album if it sounds like something you might like: https://open.spotify.com/album/27uDHLPNcRLN4A4MURkNL3?si=3XfoEmhcRhSn5kB6zKPVWg
