Album Review: Betty Moon Drops Dazzling ‘Hellucination’

Born in Toronto, and now based in Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Betty Moon recently dropped her ninth studio album, entitled Hellucination, a term amalgamating the ideas of hell and hallucination.

Like the title, the music on Hellucination blends a variety of genres into delicious sonic brews brimming with diverse textures, including heady dance pulsations, visceral rock, and sparkles of pop, as well as creamy dream-pop and galvanizing electro-pop. The one stable facet of the songs is Moon’s sumptuous voice, ranging from edgy grittiness to velvety sonority, yet always subtly nuanced by a mandala of coruscating timbres.

Moon began her music career while in high school, selling over 10,000 homemade records, an unheard of feat which stunned the industry labels. A&M/Universal signed her and released her self-titled debut album. Since then, she’s been nominated for CASBY Awards, played the main stage at the Sunset Strip Music Festival, and performed with The Offspring, Marilyn Manson, and Steve Aoki, along with having her music featured in films and television: Dexter, Californication, Bounty Hunters, Last Gasp, and Walking the Dead.

Comprising 11-tracks, Hellucination opens with “Save My Soul,” a dark gleaming electro-pop tune rife with potent tinctures of alt-rock riding a contagious rhythm. Moon’s lush cashmere voice infuses the lyrics with taut colors and proximate burnished resonance.

Speaking subjectively, entry points include “Runaway,” traveling on viscous opaque harmonics aglow with smooth textures. Moon’s voice exudes sultry tumescent rasping tones backed by radiant harmonies imbuing the tune with depth and luminous dimension.

“We don’t come from the same cloth/ I’m a Saint, you’re a sinner
I don’t know where you got lost / But you can’t run forever.”

Dirty and muscular, “Get Your Gun” opens on rawboned guitars and cavernous droning tones, infecting the song with wickedly erotic heft. A snarling guitar solo, edgy and searing infects the music with surging fulminating hues, followed by scrumptiously glistening falsetto harmonies, saturating the finale with glossy luster.

“Love Me Like You” rides a sexy R&B-flavored melody supported by a throbbing rhythm crowned by Moon’s primeval femme fatale tones, as retro-savors of ‘60s vocal harmonies imbue the tune with delish Motown relish. “Crazy” opens on electrifying pulsing colors flowing into choir-like vocals exuding rippling washes of steamy voluptuous surfaces, broad and bursting with shimmering dynamism. Thick with carnal audacity, this song seethes with boundless hormonal seduction.

Hellucination is marvelously wrought, delivering stylish melodies, infectious rhythms, and the lavishly superb voice of Betty Moon.

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