For over a decade, Mo Lowda & the Humble have been a band in constant motion. Both literally and sonically. With Tailing The Ghost, their long-awaited fifth studio album, the Philadelphia indie rock quartet has transformed the transience of tour life into something unexpectedly grounded: an expansive, lived-in record that feels like a coast-to-coast road trip, where each track is its own distinct state, mood, or memory.
Out now and recorded entirely on the road, Tailing The Ghost is the band’s most cohesive effort to date. It’s a result of impromptu writing sessions that took place between poker games, home-cooked meals, and late-night hangs under the stars in places like Joshua Tree and Lake Travis. There’s a physicality to the album that can’t be faked; you can hear the landscape in the music, from the dusty sprawl of “Fitzroy” to the gentle shimmer of “To Keep Sane in the Dark,” a standout track inspired by the desert skies where it was conceived.
Mo Lowda has always operated just a little left of the trends, and here, their timelessness works to their advantage. This is a band that sounds like it belongs to another era – though what era, exactly, is hard to pin down. There are glimmers of ’70s classic rock, hints of 2010s indie, and the punch of ’90s alt, all blended into a sound that’s warm, confident, and unmistakably their own.
One of the album’s most arresting moments comes on “Sara’s Got Big Plans,” a groovy mid-album gem with syncopated percussion, gang vocals, and one hell of a hook. “Though I wasn’t ready for her, she was ready for the world,” frontman Jordan Caiola sings. It’s the kind of chorus you find yourself humming long after the track ends.
“25 Years,” too, deserves mention: a tightly wound groove bomb that hits at track eight, showing the band at their most animated and catchy, with a guitar riff that begs for a live encore. It’s an energetic jolt that punctuates an album otherwise content to smolder and sprawl.
Make no mistake. This is not a greatest-hits playlist in album form. Tailing The Ghost is built to be experienced front to back, preferably with the windows down and nowhere urgent to be. There’s real camaraderie baked into these songs, from the subtle harmonies to the ease with which the band moves between moods and tempos. It’s indie rock with muscle and heart.
The band is currently touring across North America with French Cassettes and Illiterate Light, including stops at Green River Festival, Ocean Mist, and a fall hometown show at Union Transfer.
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