Little Dogs by Moving City Takes Listeners on a Journey

Photo by Maddy Cristall

Article by Keir Nicoll

This album, Moving City's Little Dogs, is full of vocals that take you into another place of memories of love between brothers and places of this land's identity. It is spacious and driving, with a romantically lilting sense about it, as well as a current folklorique feel. 

The record opens with Brothers, opening with screaming guitars. A wispy voice, asking about brothers. Where they were, finding another. A lie of engagement with another. Sliding guitar lines throughout. Flyin' Red-eye. They are asking the question of truth. “What a terrible lie.” Good ascending guitar lines, built off the drums. Their dual vocals follow each other through lyrics of letting-go.

The second song, Canadian Red, opens with slow drums and open-high-hat and searching guitars. The vocals are open and questioning. “Made it home, this time around,” they sing, with echoing guitars following. The guitar and bass follow well together. They speak of life wasted through thrills. Still, they made it home. Kind of a wash of sound. The refrain repeats many times over, before the end of the song.

City Folk is easy-going and 'oohing' singing in the beginning. Then the guitar lick comes in, which brings it into a folk-rock kinda sound. The lyrics are dreaming of making it, in the city. There is a feeling of propulsion in the song. To get out of a situation, and into another one. Then, the almost country sound of their musical execution.

River Low is counted in, then over caressingly soft guitar notes, are harmony vocals about highs and lows and the understanding of what can be said, as the heart plays its games. The River runs low. It's always cold. 

East To West is a lowdown sounding folk singer-like early Bob Dylan, with chanted choral vocals behind the “Well I'm just passin' by.” “Funny how things change all around you,” they implore us to understand, that which it is that motivates us out of our places of comfort, to take a look at what else there is in the world, you are passing by.

Driving friends are Shoulder Friends, full of sounds like a cruise in a car by the sidelines of the highways of our lives in the nights of these times. They send out a message of a place they can be. The guitar lines are propulsive. Awaiting. Soaring guitar-lead-lines. With a low long synth outro.

Homesick starts as woozy as the title sounds. A tinkling bell intros into the warming space of the music. “The rain comes down, even when the sun's out/there's nowhere to go.” You just want to stay home. The sound of the music is distorted. There is another wash of sound here, where the shinin' light of out of the darkness is coming out of the subtle chaos, of this song. Some accordion-like sounds in here. Ghostly sounds take it out.

The next song, Easter Endings, starts with a stolidly strummed set of beauty chords, on the guitar, with a pristine sound. Sounds of being tired, after getting what you wanted. “Never enough.” The melody descends and rises. It is a chiming-feeling song. The guitar chords propel it. There are no drums or bass. In and of what it means. Ghostly rising guitar-crescendoes, here. Long fade out.

There is a strong fray on the guitar and drums entering on Running Tough, stamping down the mark of the song. The sounds go round the sense of the rhythm here, a swirling feel. And the vocals implore again - “I am out on my own.” “What is it like??” The guitars sound a little like Santana here, as they arise. 

Hard Luck has a slow and sorrowful entry, that sounds to set the stage for some kind of lost love, over “lonely nights like these.” He sings of a lost and only one. “When the sky breaks wide,” is a sound of combat that he fights. Guitar lines follow well on the vocals here, as the song falls into its own internal sense of rhythm and soul/blues. More hauntingly soft vocals. Making it look easy. To go through hard luck. Shredding sonorous dual-note patches of guitar chords. Dual-guitars.

Hot Ticket brings to mind the Hot Tramp mentality, with a blue-grassy folk intro on guitar, complete with harmonica. Tambourine and hand-claps spruce up the song. Being by the seaside would do you some good. He's searching for a while now. Speaking of dreams. The tambourine continues on. Long and slow strums on the guitar chords. Then, a nice guitar-lickin' outro, over more harmonica notes. Long overheld ending.

Slide guitar entry in the Cry of the Wolf that sounds as woeful and distant as the plains of the tundra. Goin' back is not an option. The dual vocal harmonies are effective here. “You know that I loved you,” they are reaffirming, in their adoration. Who's to blame – what is it, this seeming fate? The musical lines, follow in a descending pattern here, as the vocals intone over the slide guitar.

The last song is Keep On Falling. It is opened by a lovely arpeggiated plucking-line, with another guitar-line picked-out overhead with an angelic effect. The vocals speak of having fun, over a seriously, painfully beautiful guitar line. Dead, like everybody outside. “I don't mind.” The guitar chords build, as the solo-line goes off in a screaming cacophony of dissonance and consonance. The vocals push and soar over this. The drive continues, as the instruments and vocals start to fall off. 

This is an overall lush and well-produced album. It is as enjoyable to listen to the second time as the first. The instruments are tasteful and well-produced and well-placed, as are the vocals, which are also, very clear and feelingly insistent, throughout the songs. They take on different feels, depending on the meanings and lyrics of each one. A compelling listen if you are into deep feelings of the country-folklore.

Listen to Little Dogs here