{"id":9071,"date":"2025-09-25T06:54:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T10:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=9071"},"modified":"2026-03-10T07:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:06:35","slug":"moviola-earthbound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/moviola-earthbound\/","title":{"rendered":"Moviola
Earthbound"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Moviola,<\/a>Where does Moviola land in 2025?<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to think it\u2019s upon a weird road map that connects Columbus, Ohio, (where the band gestated) to somewhere on some land out in the rural exburbs of Columbus, or in Battleboro, Vermont, or on a desolate block of Brooklyn. Their travelogue is a twisted vine. A beverage on any porch, on any stop on that highway, means the same thing, especially if there\u2019s a Midwestern sunset in the distance. The porch doesn\u2019t matter; we are all looking at the same sun.<\/p>\n

If my objective is to get you to listen to Moviola right now, and what they\u2019ve become in the \u201cnow,\u201d a history lesson isn\u2019t apt. They\u2019ve been a band that has dabbled in the Grateful Dead\u2019s school of traditional folk and jam Americana, the abject melancholy of a domestic life, and the tilted indie rock and cloudy alternative hues with which they began. Or we could examine the conceptual heft of their last album, Broken Rainbows<\/i>, which went absolutely for broke and looked down into the greatest void the everyman must face. They performed it onstage in full, and it was a cathartic night. It would be kind of selfish to want them to make Broken Rainbows II<\/i>. Though they\u2019ve settled into a steady pace, they never seem content concentrating on just one thing, so a sequel would feel cheap.<\/p>\n

In sitting with Earthbound<\/i> (Dromedary Records), their ninth full-length since forming in 1993, it\u2019s not a surprise that Moviola are leaning into an even more collaborative\u2014let\u2019s call it collective\u2014front. It\u2019s all over that map. These are men of leisure, tanning in the apocalyptic twilight. No matter where you are on their hill, or where they are in middle age, you should head back and listen to The Year You Were Born<\/i>, an album from 1996 built in Moviola\u2019s most achingly beautiful phase. Earthbound<\/i> taps directly into that well, with Jake Housh\u2019s lovingly pained voice and earnest beacon. \u201cGathered in Bloom\u201d could surely be beckoning back to that achingly beautiful phase, and might be the band\u2019s greatest song. It\u2019s a perfect distillation of three decades of songwriting, steeped in sepia-toned vibes.<\/p>\n

You hope that the music becomes timeless in opposition to the references. A very pointed song, \u201cHIllbilly Effigy,\u201d that directly names our vice-president, leans into the anxiety of our daily politics. But let\u2019s imagine that we all forget his name a decade from now, and we laugh instead at that forgotten name. Or take \u201cSlage Wave,\u201d a rollicking, almost traditional, romp about the working man and his comic existence. What\u2019s the point? It\u2019s all pointless.<\/p>\n

Above all, though, there are deadly serious messages within, but there\u2019s always a smirking hope (a silver lining?), especially in “Questionnaire,\u201d when Housh says, \u201cWorld don\u2019t know how to turn anymore.\u201d Whether they\u2019re doing deadpan Velvets on \u201cKnocked Down\u201d or Stonesy smut on \u201cStunt Your Growth,\u201d it\u2019s done with a grand, elegiac celebration of lives well led.<\/p>\n

Moviola may be too terrestrial to be considered like Grandaddy or the Flaming Lips, too straightlaced to be the Strapping Fieldhands, too Ohio \u201cope\u201d-wit to be in line with David Berman (but close), too inherently democratic to crack one formal code of creation. And therein lies the magical qualities that have sustained the myth of Moviola. Tortoise and the hare? Maybe. It\u2019s a wonderful myth to explore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where does Moviola land in 2025? I\u2019d like to think it\u2019s upon a weird road map that connects Columbus, Ohio, (where the band gestated) to somewhere on some<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,2705],"class_list":["post-9071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-moviola"],"yoast_head":"\nMoviola Earthbound - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Album review: Earthbound by Moviola, the Columbus band's ninth album, out on Dromedary Records.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/moviola-earthbound\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moviola Earthbound - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Album review: Earthbound by Moviola, the Columbus band's ninth album, out on Dromedary Records.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/moviola-earthbound\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheAgitReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-25T10:54:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-10T11:06:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/moviola1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevin J. 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