By: Shelby Lum
Soft.
Soft is how lead singer, Will Fussell, came to describe Mood Rings‘ style. Most groups are reluctant or resistant to confining their music to a simple genre of word, but when put into a phrase, soft is an apt descriptor for the five-piece Atlanta band.
“It’s meant to listen to in your room…we tried to create a personal feeling on it,” Fussell said.
Mood Rings is scheduled to have a release party for their debut album VPI Harmony via Mexican Summer on Saturday, June 29th at 529. With the release party, also comes a special night for both the band and the audience.
“We are planning on making a pretty interesting stage set up…all I can probably say is that it’s going to be very white,” he said, giving up no other details on the unique performance Mood Rings has planned.
At times, Mood Rings has been dubbed as “shoegazer” music with a soft, almost melancholy style to it. Fussell has a point, it’s personal to the point where you want to sit in your room and play VPI Harmony on repeat.
“It’s more of a personal and emotional sound,” the singer said.
The debut album has been two years in the making since the EP Sweater Weather Forever in 2011, and Mood Rings has taken some steps in creating a different album that still retains it’s unique and soft tone.
“I think all of our abilities have grown…I think we have definitely changed a lot,” Fussell said. “We are always changing. We are always trying to not make the same album twice.”
With five different bodies and minds hacking away at the creative process, the music made by Mood Rings isn’t just the brainchild of one, but five different opinions, with each member contributing their own perspectives to how to change a track or make it better.
“I think the fact that we all have different ideas of what we wanted it to sound like. It seemed like an amalgamation of all these different sounds. I think that VPI Harmony sounds like us. If you were to meet us and see how we interact…it sounds like our lives and what we go through,” he said. “I see it not as a genre, but how we each are personally affected by the music we create.”
The debut album, with all it’s emotion and softness is personal–it feels intimate and close.
“It makes a more pure product if you go into it in a naive standpoint, like I want to make this and wherever it goes it goes,” Fussell said.
Their debut release, VPI Harmony will be in stores on Tuesday, 6/25. The CD & LP from Mood Rings will be available at Criminal Records, Decatur CD, and Wax n Facts.
Mood Rings’ album release party is scheduled for Saturday, June 29th at 529.
