It’s hard for me to describe why I like Moving Mountains so much. Admittedly, they’re not my favorite band vocally by any stretch. The drum parts are much simpler than what I typically care for. But what the band undeniably does well is capture atmosphere. They craft mood over meaning; that’s not to suggest that their lyrics are nonsensical, but they’re a bit ambiguous at times. But couple these moody sentiments of death and existence with a bed of guitars that are equally cutthroat and shimmering and the result is an album that stands uncontested. So, for someone like me who is normally rooted in art I can break down and pick apart, Moving Mountains is able to have me surrender to pathos.

Nearly every pieces of this album is intended to be emotional, but the exact emotion tends to vary moment by moment. The premise of the album is, as far as I can tell, the lament of a lost friend and memories, fears, and regrets that run parallel to this experience. It’s weighty and personal, but it’s personal in a way that still holds some privacy. It’s not heady or abstract; it’s just incredibly specific in a way that feels like a letter written to the friend, full of references she would understand. We are voyeurs to this grief, wanting to wander in only to be greeted by an invisible barrier of communication.

But while we may not know what happened on Furnace Woods Road, we can understand the consequence. That is perhaps the biggest storytelling strength here – we don’t need the details to get the meaning. Moving Mountains are able to communicate through their dynamics – the aggressive urgency of overdriven guitars and screaming and the almost-lethargic singing and glistening melodies weave together in a way that arguably no other album has managed to pull off. Any heavier and you’d run into post-metal territory. And when you go lighter, you arguably end up with the rest of the Moving Mountains discography. Waves has a unique edge to it in that respect.

Going back to the lyrics for a moment, there are some truly unforgettable lines here. Take “Tired Tiger”:

My dear you’re so worn down
I can hear it in your voice
I can see it in your veins
Pumping poison through your heart
You can’t feel it anymore
Or anything at all

This is followed by a passionately-scream-sung “I will always wait for you”. The sentiments of weariness, futility, emotional numbness, and friendship are so powerful. I sit here writing this on less than two hours of sleep, wondering why after years of going to the doctor nothing has really helped even my most base of needs. I feel what it’s like to be worn down intimately. I know what it’s like to be so blind to my own condition because I can’t remember in day in 13 years I wasn’t in pain. Now, not everyone will connect so strongly in this manner – but there are few albums that seem to acknowledge this reality.

“Always Only For Me” has these beautiful lines:

Just open your heart and make believe
The sun could make and cast the biggest shadows over me
Over the places I hold in my thoughts
In my thoughts is where you’ll be

But perhaps my favorite lines of all come in “Parts in Different Places”:

You’re just a little bit tired
You didn’t even mean to leave, nothing more
I won’t remember what it’s like to be young again
I’m just a little bit tired
And anyone would feel the same
When you were leaving me

“I’m just a little bit tired” is an obvious understatement, but it’s a casual way of deflecting a difficult conversation that most people only feign interest in holding. “How are you?” “Fine.” Musically, the instrumentation picks up a bit here as well, reinforcing the frustration behind these sentiments.

Then, there’s the closing track, “Full Circle”:

When in silence
It doesn’t hurt to raise your voice
Just open it up
And explode your heart into a thousand words
Or leave it alone
And expect the same from everyone else
Just tear it apart
It doesn’t hurt to raise your voice

While many closing tracks are fairly cinematic, this is standard fare for Moving Mountains on every track on the album. Still, they manage to set the bar even higher here, closing things out with a combination of screaming, strings, piano, and all of the emotional equivalent of the force of a bulldozer.

Before I go too deep into praise, I need to mention a few things. First, I would never cite Moving Mountains as one of my favorite bands vocally as I mentioned earlier. That’s not to suggest the vocals are bad by any stretch, but admittedly they’re pretty similar to a lot of mid-2000s emo-type acts. Most songs are in the open tunings of D or C so you’ll expect vocals to follow suit and stay in a bit of a tenor range. I certainly cannot belt these songs out in these keys.

But undeniably, this album was THE definitive influence for me playing guitar. Even though I sold my guitar a year ago, I remember diving into open tunings in search of the formula for the melodic and harmonic structures of this record. Many of their compatriots would inevitably settle for a standard dropped tuning of sorts, but there’s a mystical quality here that keeps this from being “just another post-hardcore record” (though even then, it’d likely be excellent). In fact, I think this touch made them a bit of a gateway band for me to eventually start to appreciate folk, with their self-titled record being a bit of a catalyst in this respect. Even though this record was a one-off, it managed to marry the world of heavier music with the dynamic nuance of post-rock; it is neither too sleepy nor too abrasive

This album is not without its critics, with many fans preferring Pneuma or the self-titled record (and a handful picking the traditionally-post-rock Forward as their favorite). And honestly, this is justifiable, especially if those were your entry points to Moving Mountains’ discography and you were a fan of Deeper Elm.

But for those of us who discovered them through Triple Crown and were used to the fare of emo and post-hardcore acts, Waves was an interesting diversion from what many bands were doing. Most bands were trying to create the most complex riffs and penned esoteric lyrics set to hour-long concept albums. But Moving Mountains never seemed flashy or pretentious. Their songs ache in an honest manner.

Waves is a timeless sort of album – its sound has rarely been replicated and its themes are fairly universal. It transcends genre. It subverts expectation. And it doesn’t feel like it has aged a single day.