Midnight Movies take the Moody Blues and more to go Franco-dance on their new EP, Nights. The Los Angles four piece’s follow-up to last year’s sophomore full-length, Lion the Girl, draws from a wide range of sources, including The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Moody Blues, and the French tongue. It also includes some great tracks from the Lion sessions that were missing from the record.
Nights opens with the titular “Nights in White Satin”, the band’s cover of the Moody Blues number. Expansive and orchestral, it is, however, outshined by the EP’s finisher, a French language version of “Nights”, “Mes Reves Satin”. The Francophone influence can be heard in either version, but the fully Gaullist one is even grander.
Between these are two dance-punk remixes and two great new tracks. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner takes Midnight Movies’ “Souvenirs” and makes it some pressing dance-punk, while The Smashing Pumpkins’ James Iha makes Movies’ single “Patient Eye” into a haunting dance-punk. However, the real standouts are the two pieces incomprehensibly left off of Lion the Girl, “Should Have Known” and “Stormy Eyes”. “Should” has a driving power amongst its reverbed vocals, while “Stormy” is darker and prettier, but both have a hook.
Midnight Movies was already a ‘night time’ band before this EP. But now they’ve broadened their starry expanse across the ocean.
