Harmony, harmony, harmony. Apparently, its back in style and it sounds great. Witness foursome Low Stars with their debut album.
I know what you are thinking… these guys are a CSN ripoff. You’d be right, but they don’t hide from this. In fact, they embrace it.
“We wanted to make an authentic-sounding record that was reminiscent of that era of music,†Low Star Chris Seefried says of the CSN/Eagles inspiration. “We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,†says Low Star Dave Gibbs. “People don’t even realize that they miss this kind of music until they hear it. It’s straightforward, very genuine music. The situation today is that everything is so processed and artificial. You don’t really have to know how to play anything or how to sing. You can fix everything with Pro Tools in the studio. But that’s not us. We’re just four dudes with guitars. We sound exactly like that when we stand in front of you and sing.â€
This admission somehow makes the whole gig entirely embraceable. Its one thing to sound like someone else and totally deny it. But when the influences are so strong that you can’t shed the comparisons, just say yeah that’s true and show people what you’re really made of. Low Stars not only does this well, they are great at it. I recall a few years back when The Thorns were creating music like this. The music was good, but fans brought such high expectations for the “supergroup” consisiting of Matthew Sweet, Paul Thorn and Shawn Mullins. Plus, you knew that each of these guys were so solid on their own that this had to be a temporary gig. It was, though I hope it wasn’t cause those dudes made some sweet melodies together. What makes Low Stars so appealing in this regard is that even though each of the members of the band have quite a resume, their names aren’t out there to quite the scale of Sweet, Thorn and Mullins. That gives them promise and me hope that they’ll stick around and take the sweet sounds of the 60s to a new generation of listeners that is missing out on what makes classic rock well… “classic”.
The band consists of Chris Seefried, Jude, Jeff Russo and Dave Gibbs. Seefried is best known as the lead singer of God’s Child and more recently toured with Rosanne Cash as a singer and guitarist. Jude has written songs heard on “Lost”, “Alias”, “The OC” and other hit television shows. Russo was the lead guitaris and a songwriter for Tonic. Gibbs was a founding member of Gigolo Aunts. So whether you know these guys by name or not, they’ve already been an impressive part of music in recent years.
Diving into the album, I knew as soon as I heard the first song that the album would be worth at least a few repeat listens. It was and more. Its been on full rotation for quite a while for me. First track “Tell the Teacher”, without question channels the best of CSN but I’ll also offer a few unexpected comparisons like REO Speedwagon and perhaps Styx. If you can listen to any of the first few songs and not evoke CSN’s “Deja Vu” (a favorite of this reviewer) then I suggest you go listen to both of them because, frankly, you’re missing out on some good music. Check out one of my favorite songs on the album titled “Child”:
“Child” (MP3)
[audio:http://www.fileden.com/files/2006/11/2/343660/02%20Child.mp3]
You can preview more tracks and learn more about the band from their eCard or their MySpace profile. The album became available in Starbucks stores on February 15, 2007 and is downloadable from iTunes.
MP3 posted with permission from Music Allies.
About the author: Washington, D.C. area creative by day. Music is my muse. I host Twangville’s weekly Readers‘ Pick.