After 3 years of silence since "Harmonies For The Haunted" (for some a "misunderstood" album, for others simply a bad record) the American quartet Stellastarr* is back with "Civilized", third album in their not too prolific discography and which seems to confirm that they are one of those bands that suffer the curse of having debuted with an extraordinary album which, 6 years later, is still a obligatory reference to their work and somekind of "shadow". "Civilized" is composed for 10 tracks which include pieces such as "Tokyo Sky" or "Graffiti Eyes" which sounds like the band tries to return to their "roots" combining power and spontaneity with Michael Junin's guitar generating all kinds of melodies, taps and riffs that are mounted over the distorted strings Shaw Christensen rounded with Amanda Tannen choruses (whose bass, indeed, has improved notably). On the other hand there are songs like "Robot" or "Numbers" in which New Yorkers show they have not broken up with that eighties new wave darkie sound that characterized his second album (perhaps they aren't trying to do so anyway). "Civilized" is a regular record so close to be good: it have power, it have punch, from the middle part of the album, with "Graffiti Eyes", the funny "Zombie Prom" and the powerful "Warchild," the album reaches really good moments but at the end something happen that there is nothing that definitely catch us. Unlike "Stellastarr*", their debut album, there is not any memorable song like "My Coco" or "Jenny", there is not the urgency and freshness of "Pulp Song". Certainly better landed that "Harmonies For The Haunted", but even without reaching the level of "Stellastarr *", "Civilized" shows a good band with the potential (already shown by the way) to make brilliant songs but which maybe this time lacks a bit of ambition, a last effort to get a good record without any objection. -CORANNIEIT-
Stellastarr*, Civilized
Bloated Wife Records, 2009
Links:
Official Website
My Space Website
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