“You have no idea how excited we are to finally be able to talk to people about this,” explains Newmoon vocalist/guitarist, Bert Cannaerts. The excitement of which he speaks comes from the impending release of the bands debut album, ‘Space’. “It’s been such a long time coming that it almost doesn’t feel new to us anymore, but we finally got to hold the sleeves of the album in our hands recently, which gave us another burst of energy.“

Recorded in the autumn of 2015, ‘Space’ is the culmination of a whirlwind 18 months that the Belgian quintet never expected. Following the release of their debut EP, ‘Invitation To Hold’, back in 2014, there was almost an immediate interest in Newmoon. “After we released the EP, we got asked to play shows, go on tour, and generally what our plans were,” continues Cannaerts. “We pretty much started on this right away, and we really worked as fast as we could.”

During that time, Newmoon experienced several things that some new bands could only dream of. Cannaerts recalls playing their fifth or sixth show with Basement to a sold-out crowd at the Electric Ballroom in London as “so surreal,” and expresses his gratitude at being able to play to “a bunch of people who were so enthusiastic about our band in another city,” remembering their own headline show at Birthdays in London several months later. Cannaerts knows how lucky Newmoon are, and he is not taking that for granted.

“Right before we recorded ‘Invitation To Hold’, our guitarist, Giel, said he would be happy if we just played two or three shows a year,” laughs Cannaerts over the phone from his Antwerp home. Newmoon kept their expectations modest, having been burnt out from the schedule that was held by several members previous band, Midnight Souls. “Being in bands is one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done, but it also puts so much strain on other aspects of your life. Things weren’t supposed to last for 10 years, which put us in a really negative space by the end of Midnight Souls. I think that’s why Newmoon came as a surprise to all of us, as we really didn’t aspire to do anything in particular.”

For ‘Space’, Newmoon have now taken things to the next level. Moving from Jeremy Bolm of Touche Amore’s D.I.Y label, Secret Voice, to the widely respected PIAS (in Europe, with Mayfly handling the US release). “For Belgian music, we are a really niche band,” says Cannaerts, discussing the move to their new label. “I don’t think any of us expected them to be so enthusiastic about our band, but as soon as they invited us to meet them, we got a very positive vibe from them. We had to take this chance, as one thing we have always made Newmoon about is experiencing new things.”

In the run up to releasing ‘Space’, very little has been heard from Newmoon. While they haven’t been completely off the radar, they chose not to shout about the creation of the album. Cannaerts admits they are not the type of people to “constantly post updates from the studio, and then at the end of the year not have a record.” He explains how he and the rest of Newmoon had to be sure that what they were creating would be ready. “We recorded everything, then we went back over each song, seeing what we could change or add. We experimented with different ideas to make it the best it could possibly be.”

That hard work clearly paid off. The end result that you hear is a very cohesive, methodically planned record that shows the creative effort they put in. It soars through lush, reverb-laced riffs that collide into one another, carried by subtle, smooth vocal melodies. “As far as the sound of the album goes, we put a lot of work in to find out exactly what Newmoon is,” he says, before looking back at the progression from their debut EP.

While proud of those songs, Cannaerts believes they are a little all over the place, being the first three songs that the band ever wrote, adding that that it “fits well, but feels somewhat disconnected.” He uses their glorious track ‘Aria’ as a particular reference point. “We got such a positive reaction to that song, and we couldn’t have hoped for more. We love that song, and we will probably never stop playing it, but we didn’t want to be the band that only writes that kind of song. We tried to find a way to have that sense of melody, without losing any of the heaviness or melancholy that makes us Newmoon.”

With a very dynamic sound spread across a number of influences, what exactly is Newmoon then? “When people ask me what we sound like, I usually just say indie, or alternative rock,” says Cannaerts, which leads us into a discussion about the often-criticised word, shoegaze. “Honestly, I never really understood why that’s such a bad thing, or why it’s seen as an insult,” he continues.

“Maybe that’s because I wasn’t around for the initial movement, and we never set out to start a shoegaze or dreampop band. If someone wants to say we sound like My Bloody Valentine influences us, I don’t see that as a bad thing because they are a band we all love. I also don’t think it’s bad if someone hears Radiohead in our music, because again, they are a huge inspiration to us. I guess if someone wants to call us shoegaze in a negative way, I can’t stop them, but the longer you play in bands, the less it effects you what people say. You can only hope they react to it positively.”

Whatever you want to call Newmoon, the depth of their music goes far beyond just one tag, and that depth is amplified by the underlying theme of ‘Space’, which in actual fact, started as  tongue-in-cheek joke for Cannaerts. “We have never been a band that takes ourselves too seriously, and we thought it would be fun to call the record ‘Space’, given our band name. We already had people say the whole Twilight thing to us (the band is actually named after an Elliott Smith album), so we figured people would think we were just being stupid with the album title. At the same time, it became more than that, I was thinking of this theme for the album that could be so broad, yet also so specific, and ‘Space’ seemed to make more sense.”

The space that Cannaerts ventures into on the record mostly comes from the space between people. The opening track on the album, ‘Helium’, deals with a mental space, which stemmed from a trip to Japan. “A few of us were travelling around there. With the language barrier and difference in culture, we were unable to communicate with people above a very basic level, we felt quite isolated,” he begins. “If you are unable to communicate with people, whether it’s in a relationship or society in general, it creates a space that is almost impossible to bridge without that connection.

“There are also songs that look at the physical space that is created between two people,” he continues, opening up further about the theme of the record. “One of the tracks, ‘Skin’, is about embracing a person that you love without knowing that it’s the last time you will ever see them. It’s about the space you create between two human bodies that can’t be bridged, and is separated forever. I think the people that really take the time to understand the lyrics, and where we were coming from with the songs will relate to the title of the album.”

The narrative of ‘Space’ is something that almost anyone can relate to in some way, and Cannaerts explains that no matter which way people are invested in the album, it is left open deliberately. “I feel like this album is one that people should be able to apply their own meaning to. I would never tell someone that they interpreted a song in the wrong way,” he continues. “The album isn’t about one person, or one event. It’s the changes in life, how we deal with them on an emotional level, and how we adapt to those situations. I’m not here to tell people how they should deal with these changes, but we can only hope that the adaption leads to becoming a better person at the end.”

It may appear to be very deep, which it is, but when you break it down, these are facts of life that we all deal with. Cannaerts tapped into that while writing ‘Space’, even down to the way in which the album is structured. He divulges that the second to last track, ‘One Thousand’, is a about “the literal amount of steps a person takes before it becomes obvious you have changed, and the direction you take your life from there, good or bad.”

It culminates with the glorious, uplifting ‘Liberate The World’, which Cannaerts says sums up the whole point of ‘Space’ as it is “hopeful, yet abstract,” and serves as metaphor for not just the album, but life itself. “You hope for the best, and try to always keep a positive outlook,” he concludes. “Tomorrow might be the best or the worst day of your life, but you won’t know until you get there.”

‘Space’ is released on October 14th, and available to pre-order now. Newmoon will play a free show at Upstairs at The Garage in London on December 8th.