A heartfelt ode to home: A review of Moy Cohen’s debut EP, ‘Overgrown’

Moy Cohen, a British-Mexican singer-songwriter currently based in Sydney, released his debut EP, Overgrown on August 9th.

Blending the piano chops of Elton John and the lyrical quality of James Blake, Cohen’s EP pulls together previous singles from the last seven years to create a wholly cohesive body of work that speaks to the unpredictability of life, self-affirmative care and the power of home.

Speaking about the EP, Moy said: “For me, Overgrown is a double entendre: On one hand, I feel like I grew up quickly with many significant changes early in my life.

My parents' messy divorce and its ripple effects, among other things, left me emotionally ‘overgrown’ for my age. I used music to process these difficult emotions and transform them into art, resulting in this EP.

On the other hand, I feel like this project itself is ‘overgrown.’ Songs I wrote years ago pot-bound in a private link, and now I am releasing them to let their roots spread in the world.”

Moy Cohen brings a sincere earnestness to his work that allows him to paint eloquent pictures with his words, culminating in a tracklist that oscillates smoothly from one point to the next. Clocking in at half an hour, this EP serves almost as a full-length album in its scope, with each track complimenting one another in their placement across the work.

Harbouring in the realm of piano-led ballads and moody crooners, the instrumentation is crisp and lush, utilising emotive string arrangements, sharp guitar licks and soft drumming. Like the cover artwork, which sees Cohen’s body overtaken by vines and leaves, the instrumental and lyrical qualities of his songs slowly grow on you overtime, drawing closer to your heart upon repeated listens.

The first track, Hello Home, feels like a late 70s Elton John single, gradually building up from hushed murmurs of the changing nature of a ‘home’ to an emotional climax. Having been raised in a broken family, Cohen’s ideas of what a home is to him are fractured and varied, a sentiment held in the opening line: “Hello home, you look different every time”. You can easily tell that Cohen is singing from a place of pain and loss for a past he never had.

Written when Moy was 17, Hello Home captures the heart of the EP, reinforcing the themes of change, anxiety, and belonging that he has laced throughout the project’s tracklist:

“You know that feeling when you’ve been away from home for a while, and when you come back, everything seems different? That’s what I tried to capture in Hello Home,” Moy explains. “As a kid, I moved around a lot between Mexico and England, so I became very familiar with that feeling [and so] we kept the sound raw and simple.”

The bluesy Against the Wind crackles with knotty guitar licks that set the crooning pace for this second track. Cohen speaks of his need to stay above the storm, preferring to fly above the lightning and thunder. Like a person caught in a flood just trying to keep their head above water, this is never easy, but Cohen knows this, expertly matching his lament to a moody blues rock tune.

Sleepless Nights is a fabulous, soulful moment on the EP. Cataloguing the falsehood of apologies made in desperation, being gaslit into thinking everything’s alright when it just does not feel that way, all soundtracked onto sultry keys and a swooning chorus, Sleepless Nights possesses one of the best hooks on Overgrown.

Despite the bulk of the tracks wallowing in the mire of blues and impassioned ballads, the EP draws to a close with an orchestral note. Ocean might be Cohen’s most affirming song, with a terrific piano line bringing in the song before opening up into a string-laden chorus worthy of candles waved in the air.

All in all, Overgrown shows off Moy Cohen’s great promise as a young, up-and-coming singer-songwriter in the best way possible. If you are in need of a cohesive body of work with strong lyrical content, Overgrown will certainly wind its way into your heart.

To stay updated with Moy Cohen’s future projects, you can follow him on Instagram and listen to the rest of his music on Spotify: