Starflyer 59

Item: Fell in Love at 22
Author: Keith Giles

Fell in Love at 22

(1999)

Reviewed by Keith Giles

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Label Tooth & Nail RecordsThe Phantom Tollbooth1999

alternative rock dream pop indie rock shoegaze

There's something about this band that exudes an untouchable cool factor. Is it the layered guitar effects that swirl around Jason Martin's husky, whispered vocals like ethereal smoke? Is it the disaffected attitude that permeates each unintelligibly sad lyric? Is it the gargantuan wall of distorted noise? No. It's none of those things separately, but the sum of each wound together in a lovingly packaged jewel case and shrink-wrapped for your next fix of wanna-be-British-noise-pop-Christian-alternative-rock-and-roll.

In this latest EP, an addendum to the full-length release The Fashion Focus, Jason Martin serves up four extra tracks of semi-sweet pop angst at its delectable finest. Turning ever so slightly from the "wall-of-noise" guitars that exemplified earlier recordings, and leaning gently in the direction of wide-open, molasses-slow surf rock guitar tones, Jason takes us on another tour of his shadowed imaginarium.

There are only a few things here that are new and different. Among them is the nearly endless instrumental "Traffic Jam," which feels like a long, slow loop of the same guitar riff placed on infinite repeat. Also, the excellent "E.P. Nights" is a rare Starflyer 59 song that mentions the name Jesus, and there is an actual lyric sheet-that really doesn't help you decipher the cryptic meanderings of Jason Martin's brazen disregard for sentence structure. All you get with this EP is exactly what you were looking for in the first place: a great collection of more of the same from the band that you can't get enough of.

When Jason Martin drones on about how:

You can't compress with the always used
please give me something new
We want it bad
And could we please come home
Ya, we want it bad

on the song "We Want It Bad," it's the collective vibe of his maddening vocal, coupled again with the molasses-slow guitar riff, that makes it all work, and even somehow make sense.

Here's hoping that Jason Martin doesn't ever unpack all the British-angst from his American Samsonite suitcase. At least not until he can record another glittering rock masterpiece like this one.

4 tocks