Produced by veteran rocker Randy Kerkman, Celestial Static owes a lot to its Chicago peers in the music business. "New Day" opens the disc with a heavy guitar sound a la Smashing Pumpkins, with vocals in the Belly/Veruca Salt/Primitives mode.
"Rain" continues this trend, with lead vocalist Julie Elzerman doing her best Breeders/Tanya Donnelly impression. "Flying Thru" opens with a bagpipe solo, then adds more Smashing Pumpkins-like guitar work by Elzerman. "Radiate" employs the current trend in female vocals: emphasis on certain syllables of words, changing their inflection or accenting them differently from the norm -- a style made popular by The Cranberries and Alanis Morissette.
Much of Rumors of Snow sonically can be traced back to The Pixies, but the lyrics and vocals need to be brought up in the mix. The tendency here is that they get buried beneath the fuzzy guitar, and overwhelmed by the instrumentation of Jeremy Elzerman (bass), and Erin Lee (drums and keyboards). This is probably intentional, but distracts from the overall performance for those of us who like to understand the words. Generally, though, Celestial Static shows some promise -- it remains to be seen if they are a niche band or if they can produce the breakthrough song that will ensure their success.
3.5 tocks
Other coverage for this album
The Phantom Tollbooth 2001Reviewed by Chris MacIntoshHailing out of Aurora, Ill. is a bright young trio named Celestial Static. The band consists of Julie Elzerman on lead vocals and guitar, Erin Lee on vocals, drums, and keyboards and Jeremy Elzerman on bass guitar. Let me say right off the top that Julie's vocals remind me of a cross between Leigh Nash & Julie Miller and I mean that as a compliment of the highest order. The project was recorded,…
