Album Review: Walk The Moon – “Talking Is Hard”

By: Laura Beaulne-Stuebing –

Walk The Moon – “Talking Is Hard”

It’s a shame Walk the Moon released their second full-length album in December. With Talking is Hard, the Cincinnati quartet is clearly reaching for summer sing-alongs and the success they had with “Anna Sun”, a catchy summer ditty from the band’s self-titled album released in 2012. A December release puts them in the season of wintry, inward-looking and contemplative music, which doesn’t fit at all with where Walk the Moon is heading with their sophomore LP.

Members Nicholas Petricca, Sean Waugaman, Kevin Ray and Eli Maiman know how to make danceable pop rock that’s easy to consume, and from the first hook to the last refrain they’re channeling the eighties, with plenty of synthesizers and beats.

And that, however hooky and dancey the tracks are, is perhaps part of where Talking is Hard goes astray. So much is familiar. It’s not U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” you’re hearing, that’s actually the single “Shut Up and Dance”. And no, it isn’t “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye, that’s Walk the Moon’s “Aquaman” (the last track, which unexpectedly and head-scratchingly peters out as an awkward end to the album).

Nothing on Talking is Hard quite hits the heights of “Anna Sun”. Their earlier single looks back at youth and looks forward at young adulthood; it’s about holding onto a bit of that ‘scrape your knee on the playground, get up and keep playing’ feeling. There’s sincerity in singer-songwriter Petricca’s voice as he sings about a house falling apart, about having no money but not really caring.

They thread these sentiments throughout Talking is Hard – along with youthful love and the pains of growing up – but it sometimes feels rote and repetitive, the lyrics simplistic and predictable. On love and pretty ladies: “Why don’t you stay at mine tonight? Why don’t you stay with me and be my sidekick?” Petricca sings on the second track “Sidekick”. And in “Avalanche”, also about love and pretty ladies, or maybe a pretty lady: “You got a look in your eyes, I knew you in a past life. One glance and the avalanche drops. One look and my heartbeat stops.” Simple, nice, but that’s about it.

It’s almost impossible not to dance to these tracks, though. Opening track “Different Colors” seems to be about the power of music and dance to get us to forget what separates us, and serves as a high-energy and thematically appropriate introduction to the rest of the album, with sing-along“ooohs” and an undeniably catchy beat. “Portugal” is one of the strongest songs and it turns into a welcome earworm after only a few listens. Synth work not heard elsewhere on the LP, and the bridge and chorus (“take me with you, ‘cause even on your own, you are not alone”) back up the themes of young love and growing up.

What the album may lack in depth, the band will undoubtedly make up for on stage. Talking is Hard encourages fist-pumping on the dance floor and Walk the Moon, who put on energetic live shows, will make sure good times are had by all when they’re on tour.

Walk the Moon is certainly right about one thing with this album: talking can be tough – expressing yourself through words isn’t always easy – and sometimes the best thing to do is just shut up and get on the dance floor.

Essential tracks: “Portugal”, “Shut Up and Dance”, and “We Are The Kids”