MOONS ON RISE, EDGE,
Coral Moons on the rise as indie rock band to watch
Coral Moons singer Carly Kraft says goodbye to her childhood home on the title track of her new LP “Fieldcrest.” Kraft opens the tender track indulging in nostalgia — ruminations about raiding her parents’ liquor cabinet, campfires with friends. But midway through the track, the narrative falls away as the singer howls over and over again, “We got old.” Around her voice, the band whips up in a mighty crest of volume.
“Fieldcrest is the name of the street that I grew up on in upstate New York,” Kraft said. “It’s about me coping with my parents moving, but also about me coping with feeling like I’m late to the game as a musician in my mid-20s.”
“The ending gets a little emotional,” she continued. “I’m screaming, ‘We got old,’ and it’s pretty much a live take of the band building and building. When we listened back to it we were all just crying because it felt so real and special.”
A typical route for musicians involves graduating from hairbrushes and tennis rackets to microphones and guitars in high school or college then bars and clubs after that. Instead, Kraft went to Rochester Institute of Technology and found a programming job in Boston after college.
So how did Kraft go from writing code to fronting one of the area’s hottest bands? Like every success, skill and luck played a role. But so did boredom.
“Boredom is a great word, that describes a lot of it,” she said with a laugh. “I never pictured being at a 9-5 job. The gender inequalities that exist in the workplace were really hard on me as a female developer. It felt like I was meant for something more.”
At the time, Kraft met a ton of locals in the music scene. She also connected with bassist Manuel Camacho at the day job and the two started doing covers on instruments their boss brought to the office — guitarist Justin Bartlett and drummer Kevin O’Connell round out the band. She learned a few guitar chords, started to write and sing, and suddenly she and Coral Moons found themselves up on stage. A rock band in the most expansive sense (the quartet can do atmospheric indie, retro soul and heavy rock), Coral Moons created a buzz at a few small city clubs
Momentum built and then stalled. After just two years together, Coral Moons nabbed 2020 Boston Music Award nominations for alt/ indie artist of the year and video of the year for their single “Winnebago” — the band plays a free BMA party Friday at the Green at 401 Park in Boston. But the pandemic crushed the music scene.
“We then thought, ‘Well, if we can’t play shows, let’s make a record,’” Kraft said. “It all came together in the studio and it was kind of a great moment for us. We were neglected of human connection. We were just in our spaces on our own. Coming together, we were so inspired to see each other and play music again.”
Maybe relief and joy elicited some of those studio tears. But honestly, it’s hard not to get choked up at how great “Fieldcrest” sounds. Produced by Sam Kassirer at his studio Great North Sound Society in rural Maine, the record has the dynamic and earthy feel of many of Kassirer’s past projects (see records by Lake Street Dive, David Wax Museum, Kingsley Flood).
Now, with gigs on the calendar and an armful of new songs ready for LP No. 2, Coral Moons feel it’s time to pick up where they left off.
“The album feels so big and special but we also just did a three week tour of it and we just want time to celebrate but there’s no time because we got to record our next project,” Kraft said with a laugh.