|
Album Review
Here's what Jason
Martin (Starflyer 59's guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, and backbone) is
up against: eight years ago the mysterious blank-silver cover of
Starflyer's self-titled debut appeared on the music-store shelves. The
album, commonly referred to as Silver, became an instant
favorite, established Martin and company as a musical force to be
watched, and proved once and for all that feedback is an instrument.
Starflyer used the album's droning wall-of-sound guitars, ambient
background noise, and airy vocals to launch a decade-long career which
produced five more full-length efforts, three EP's, two vinyls, one live
disc, a boxed set, and a cult following that rivals the likes of Phish.
In sum: Martin faces the burden of living up to his own musical career.
Fortunately,
Martin has always had two things going for him: 1) a formula that works;
2) an ability to keep that formula fresh through re-invention.
Starflyer's latest effort, Leave Here a Stranger, represents
Martin's ability to tap these two resources to their full extent.
Leave Here a
Stranger represents another iteration of the formula Martin
established with 1998's Fashion Focus. At that point in his
career, Martin completely abandoned the wall-of-sound guitars of his
earlier efforts and turned to a more simplistic model: subtract the
distortion and feedback, subtract the rock-anthem style guitar riffs,
add a little tremolo and concentrate more on melody. Starflyer's latest
effort continues this theme. Martin's guitar work remains in its more
simplistic form: two guitars, one playing a clean progression, a second
playing a riff that is so ridden with reverb that it could easily appear
in a spy film. Similarly, Martin's addictive sense of melody maintains
its position as one of Starflyer's defining characteristics. Martin, who
was raised on the British-rock of My
Bloody Valentine and Blur,
readily displays his non-American influences. The result: while the
American music scene is suffering not only from the non-melodies of the
metal and hardcore genres but also from the hokey imitation melodies of
boy-bands and supermodels, Martin has managed to produce a sound that is
simultaneously mature and catchy, distinctly British and distinctly
un-derivative.
However, the
album, while it undeniably falls into the tradition established with The
Fashion Focus, also represents yet another re-invention of Starflyer
59. Leave Here a Stranger represents Martin's effort to breathe new life
into the formula. The album comes off as less dark than previous
efforts: its dominant feeling is bouncy and amiable. Though songs like
'I Like Your Photographs' fall in line with the heartbreaking love songs
of Gold, the album as a whole feels bright and celebratory.
Leave Here a
Stranger may also be seen as a return to the big rock of Starflyer's
earliest work. The wall-of-sound is long gone, but even so, Martin's
latest effort possesses the thickest sound Starflyer has produced since
adopting their more stripped down model. What Martin lost by dropping
the distortion and the feedback he has fully recovered by adding more
dominant organ/piano parts, strings, and other sound effects that were
absent in previous efforts. The result is a full-bodied sound that
should satisfy those Starflyer fans who are suffering from nostalgia for
the rock-anthems of Gold and Americana.
The album,
however, is not without it's weaknesses. The first half almost
degenerates into a similarity that is a too close for comfort. Martin's
formula of tremolo-ridden guitar becomes familiar very quickly, though
gems like 'I Like Your Photographs' and 'Night Music' help to mix up the
sound a bit.
But this single
weakness is easily forgiven. Through his cycle of formulation and
re-invention, Martin has yet again managed to live up to his reputation
as a songwriter. The album represents an old formula presented in a new,
brighter, and thicker form. The title offers the perfect image. Martin
has re-invented himself: he has left and become a stranger. However, no
matter how many times Martin takes to wandering, he always returns to
where he began, only to find the place fresh, as though for the first
time.
~ Nolan K
Starflyer
59 (homepage)
Videos
khord.com
toothandnail
geocities.com
Interviews
austinlive.com
jmbzine.com
christianitytoday.com
|
Grace Hotel
Overall rating: +
+ + -
Old
1 Underneath (4:35)
2 Major Awards (2:53)
3 Loved Ones (3:03)
4 Passengers (3:05)
5 Lights On (3:07)
6 New Wife, New Life (3:35)
7 Old (5:22)
8 Kissing Song (2:54)
9 Unbelievers (5:31)
10 First Heart Attack (4:57)
Album Review
Summer of '95. A quorum of my closest adolescent friends
travels to Orlando for a community-sponsored Youth Group excursion and summarily
return home, one and all: Saved! Born Again! It was just supposed to be a quick
ticket out of our one-stoplight cultural abyss, but as it turned out, I didn't
know the meaning of the word "insular." Next thing I know, it's
Saturday night and I'm getting hauled to shuddersome teen-catered fireside
Bible-socials and being told to trash my entire (!) record collection. My
recently recalibrated friends had already done it. "Christian waters never
run tepid." It was all or nothing. And there, Tooth & Nail, you were:
steadfast and ice cold. You held all the answers, didn't you? Yep, for every
successful and visionary secular band or movement, there was a carefully
manicured response from the Christian music industry. I should know: I heard
every one. (And by all means, feel free to put the test to any of the following
suppositions.) For My Bloody Valentine there was Morella's Forrest; for
Pavement: Sal Paradise; for Operation Ivy: Squad Five-0; and the sonic
equivalent to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones? Why, the skalvation offerings of The
O.C. Supertones! Naturally.
In truth, listening in on this stuff wasn't a total
waste of time. Athens' own Summer Hymns supplanted the late, Zachary Gresham-led
Joe Christmas, and I still spin each Damien Jurado record I own. Furthermore,
just last month I rediscovered one of T&N's founding compatriots and
venerable torchbearers: Jason Martin's Starflyer 59. Old, his eighth
studio album is both a celebratory nod to mid-90s shoegaze pop and a successful
grasp of the current fiber-optic-sparkled baton. Granted, he might not have a
solitary death grip on any one industry spec, but he's definitely off and
running in the right direction.
While his earliest releases were loosely wound, distorted MBV-tinged
guitar-pop excursions, Martin's most recent recordings are sharper, more deeply
melodic, and starkly atmospheric. Each of the ten tracks on Old carry a
heretic regality that counter-intuitively sharpens the vintage tones of mid-90s
shoegaze rock while fabricating purebred vitality and ripened accruement within
a familiar pop construct. Most of the songs-- highlighted by the simpering and
mid-paced (yet stellar) "Passenger", and the sterile luminosity of the
piano-driven title track-- will leave a Grandaddy aftertaste in your mouth. The
songs are mortally aware, as evidenced both in the lyrics and epic, reaching
tones, which, thankfully, never venture into postmortem deliverance territory or
carry burdensome testimonial weight.
Midway, the album slowly eases into a comfortable, crystalline
canter, sinking off the coast of the album's earlier successes. The opener,
"Underneath", brashly delivers campy yet self-assured guitar-rhythms
and minor new-wave progressions laced with sweeping synths to great fortune. The
final third of the song interfaces earlier, jostling elements into a singularly
grand swing of momentum and a perfectly executed outro, lush with rolling drums
and a background chorus of devilish nirvana. Martin's breathy, overcast vocals
perfectly lace the song (the entire effort, really) with almost goth-like
murkiness. But perhaps the highlight of the album, rather than any specific
moment, is its ability to retain a congruous vision without ever growing stale
within the confines of its own sonic inclinations. Each nuanced revelation has
enough character to shine on its own, shuffling through spacious melodies and
contracted moments of alloyed potency.
The biggest departure here comes with the flawless fusion of
the closing track, "First Heart Attack", where a grandiose 70s Pink
Floyd/Moody Blues stratospheric electric digression effortlessly retreats back
into a lost Grandaddy acoustic ambit, in candid surrender to fate: "It's
when I have my first heart attack/ And I can't even breathe/ You tell the truth,
I know you wouldn't lie/ That I'm on my last beat." For all its thematic
resignation, though, Old is no response to any secular undertaking, past
or present, or cool acceptance of systemic classification. After ten years, the
band surely isn't looking to break out-- even if the notion is long overdue. If
you can overlook all the potential prefabricated pitfalls of such a release,
sooner or later it'll hit you like it hit me: I'll be damned if this ain't a
helluva solid record.
~ William Morris
|
