"Fly Mama Fly" by The Moondoggies

Seattle's premier urban-rustic folk-rock act The Moondoggies plays Neumos tomorrow night, and in my concert preview last week, I asked 24-year-old bandleader Kevin Murphy about his group's upcoming "Tidelands" album and brand new EP "You'll Find No Answers Here," out now on local label Hardly Art.

The EP is lovely, sometimes sparse and meditative, sometimes rocking, always lightly swinging, guitar-based, and heavily focused on interpersonal relationships and tough feelings. I'd been listening to a rough mix, which was great, but just got the official mastered version, which I'm excited to report is way better.

"Fly Mama Fly" is the single, and sounds almost like Fleet Foxes at the beginning, with flawlessly executed three-part vocal harmonizes triangulating around Murphy's central tenor crystal-crag. Murphy & Co. sing some words together — "fly, mama, fly / you'll find no answers here" — but take the track into ghostly territory when the chord changes, the band falls back into wordless ooh-ing and Murphy delivers the defeated-yet-trudging-forward lament, "It's just another bad day."