Considering the pant-wetting obsessiveness afforded The Strokes by the UK rock press, it's strange that an NYC band so totally removed stylistically from them as STELLASTARR* should also be causing such a stir in critical circles.
Strange, but also extremely healthy, because at least to this reviewer's overworked ears, Stellastarr* are as diverse as many of NYC's other fine NON Strokes-cloning best such as Provan and The Flesh and this, their eponymously-titled (and much-anticipated) debut proves to be a corking statement of intent by anyone's standards.
Mind you, that's not to say "Stellastarr*" is devoid of the Big Apple's traces. Cool recent single "Jenny", for example, starts with a brief burst of rifferama straight outta Sonic Youth's "Daydream Nation"; mega drummer Arthur Kremer rides his hi-hat on "My Coco" just like a junior Clem Burke and the tension apparent in tracks like the superb opener "In The Walls" recalls the dual guitar intrigue achieved so thrillingly by vintage Television. Oh - and most unusually - when vocalist Shawn Christensen gets all hot under the collar, like on "No Weather" or "Jenny"( where he blurts "well I'm a believer, hey ya ya") he uncannily recalls Golly gee early David Byrne.
Happily, though, while "Stellastarr*" hungrily incorporates such influences into its' heady brew, the end results are anything but obviously derivative, while their apparently natural bent in not taking the easy option also influences the outcome on a number of occasions. "No Weather" is a good example, spinning into view on kinetic, Pixies-style riffing and cool "ba ba ba" backing vocals from bassist Amanda Tannen (who does a bloody good Kim Deal counterpoint throughout) before frenetically and blissfully shattering into chaos before it hits the tape. Ace.
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Elsewhere, Stellastarr* prove they're masters at superb, tension-strafing tempo changes and evocative moodiness to boot. "Moongirl," for instance, comes in all reflective, with deep, chiming guitars and sprays of E-bow. It's otherworldly and yearning and you initially think it's entirely instrumental until Christensen finally blurts some anguished lines towards the end. "Homeland" works on an equally fascinating premise, with scrubbed guitars and probing rhythms giving way to something cold and metronomically ethereal. Interesting and pregnant with possibility.
Indeed, the album's final pair of tracks show little is outside Stellastarr*s scope. "Untitled" is slow, acoustic and stark, with church-y organ textures and compared to everything surrounding it is very much an animal of a different stripe. That it's followed by the euphoric blowout of "Pulp Song" is startling, but no less impressive, as the whole band put their back into something loud, proud and undeniably anthemic to sign off.
Tantalisingly familiar and provocatively forward looking in roughly equal measures, "Stellastarr*" is accomplished, arty and likeably angular. Its' authors know the value of both riffsmart rock'n'roll and smouldering seduction and on both counts reel you in comprehensively here. Cool debut and then some.
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