Mighty Joe Moon by Grant Lee Buffalo

Mighty Joe Moon, Grant Lee Buffalo's second album, came out on Slash and Reprise in September 1994, the follow-up to Fuzzy from the Los Angeles trio that had risen out of Shiva Burlesque. Grant-Lee Phillips sings and plays guitar, Paul Kimble plays bass and Joey Peters drums, and the band's folk-rooted rock is still fixed on American history, landscapes and personal stories.

This time the picture opens up. Critic Dave Thompson heard it as a wide-screen take on the debut, with a sound as vast as a Montana sky, and he's right: guitars ring out like church bells, Phillips' voice slides from a murmur to a keening wail, and the band leaves room for the silence between. "Mockingbirds" is the one the countdowns remember, slow, tender and swelling into something huge. Copperopolis came next.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.