"I Am Ruben" by Man Made Moon

Ahead of their forthcoming new album, Man Made Moon will be releasing another taster track (after "The Boy Who Fell To Earth") as a single: "I Am Ruben" will be yours on 2^nd October

Another song which belies their reputation as space obsessives, it nevertheless has a strong resonance to its immediate predecessor as it deals, in its own way, with the existential experiences of falls from grace rather than literal re-entries from above the atmosphere (though I enjoyed the short sample which does belong to their tradition). This time the message is that "hitting rock bottom can sometimes be the ultimate liberation". It's Man Made Moon picturing life in terms of a roller coaster trip (and since my all time favourite morale booster song happens to be "Roller Coaster By the Sea" by The Modern Lovers, I can readily buy into that one). There probably is also a nod of the head to Bob "when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose" Dylan.

It's tempting to place these two songs within the wider context of the whole new album (and in fact you quite reasonably will expect me to do so) but that's something we need to leave until my review of the whole LP. Don't worry: there's not too long to wait. In the meantime, on the evidence of this pair, it's also tempting to suggest that Man Made Moon have developed a particular interest in introspection with added doses of self deprecation. However, their work of previous years has had depth of this nature, so it's no novelty for them: possibly it's a road they find rewarding to travel along in their writing & want to continue to do so.

This sounds like Leonard Cohen territory doesn't it but just as it's wildly inaccurate to class all his very adult themed songs as correspondingly gloomy in tone (though public perception does too often tend in that direction), so too do Man Made Moon frequently marry perky tunes to profound lyrics. You are going to be able to distinguish "I Am Ruben" from the works of Jacques Brel even if they do share some preoccupations.

As I say, it fits within the more jaunty end of the band's musical spectrum (though not quite to the lengths perhaps of "McNulty's Bar", their most extreme example) rather than their regular ethereal style, and is such seems destined for being a live highlight: especially outdoors.