Stars Are Our Home
– Black Hearted Brother
Neil Halstead: grower
of beards, purveyor of world-class melodies, all-around grumpy guy. For essentially two decades now, Halstead has
overflown the world of indie on a trajectory of rare beauty and longevity. First with Slowdive (the thinking man’s shoegaze
band,) then with the lovely wind-and-pedal-steel-swept Mojave 3, and finally
with a couple of very pretty solo albums:
the Curmudgeon of Cornwall has always left the world more beautiful than
he found it.
Said trajectory has, up until now, paralleled the man’s
tendency to grow progressively sparer with his musical arrangements. Slowdive were, after the fashion, full of
buzzing and droning noise—beautiful noise.
While Mojave 3 were quite a few decibels lower on the register, their
music remained widely-spaced and generously populated with a collector’s
boutique of instruments. But by the time
Halstead’s latter solo albums appeared, it seemed as though they had been
whittled down to a very quiet essence of melody.
And now? Trajectory,
reversed! Neil Halstead, as part of new
band Black Hearted Brother, has once again brought the noise.
It isn’t, thankfully, an uncomplicated return to
Slowdive-ville, a fact that will delight the living and enrage the zombies of
Indie Past. Whereas both Mazzy Star and
My Bloody Valentine chose 2013 as the year to pick up right where they had
previously left off, Black Hearted Brother is a new band, and even when counted
as part of the Halstead Canon, it sounds new. And different.
And often better. Stars of Our Home opens and blossoms in
a type of prismatic sound and light show that is multiple important temperature
degrees above the chilled grooves of Halstead’s first band. Even the album art, aswirl in Technicolor,
suggests a new high-test Halstead.
(Fun exercise in the visual arts: compare the cover art for this album to that
of Slowdive masterpiece Souvlaki. It is akin to moving one’s glance in a
saccade from the center of a supernova to deepest, emptiest space.)
The title track is
the leadoff track is an instrumental,
and as such occupies a position of relative implied importance. The scale of the thing does not
disappoint: a succession of instruments
and effects parade into the soundscape, which grows ever larger to accommodate
them. And there is no chilling. The tempo hustles and an urgency propels the
notes. This is no sensitive cut off a
solo album, and its length stretches to nearly seven minutes—again, gutsy for a
leadoff and instrumental track.
The band’s proper arrival on the scene actually commences
with second track “(I Don’t Mean to) Wonder”, which explodes into shape within
just a few seconds. Guitars grow larger
than the horizon. Effects pedals demand
acquiescence. The Voice arrives in a
cloak of echo around the 1:30 mark. And
yes, a few seconds later, there is some droning.
But this is more fast rise than slow dive. A pair of revelatory tracks follow, each
with an introductory tease followed by a fully-formed ass-kicking. The first go at the format is “This Is How It
Feels” which takes 90 seconds to warm up before erupting in a cacophony of
guitar and organ and hopes and dreams.
Extra points, by the way, for copping the title of the organ-drenched
Inspiral Carpets masterpiece single of the same name.
By just-after the one-minute mark of fourth track “Got Your
Love,” a pulsing tempo (over the background sounds of a larger-than-life
machine) has won our hearts, and thirty seconds later, the triumphant arrival
of—hand to God—handclaps has introduced something altogether new and perfect to
the world. “Got Your Love” is a
revelation, and while it is enormous (in sound and length—another seven minutes
of Wow,) it is clearly flavored with the fruits of Halstead’s solo work. This point becomes especially clear a minute
or so later, when all of the noise and revelry is suddenly stripped back to the
lovely sound of the singer’s unaccompanied voice.
This union of the intimate and the infinite is a melding of
two seemingly incompatible metals; a heretofore impossible alchemy brought into
new existence. And it is fitting that
Halstead is the gent in the lab coat.
There is more, and it is just as good. “My Baby Just Sailed Away,” sounds like the
title of a latter-half track from one of the aforementioned quiet solo albums,
but it is no such thing. Rather it is a
buzzing, twinkling inhabitant of some intergalactic dance floor, and its spare,
propulsive guitar notes recall more than a few New Fast Automatic Daffodils
songs. We are several galaxies removed
from all of Neil Halstead’s recorded history now, and it feels spectacular.
There are a few missteps, when the pyrotechnics ignite but
never really lift off, and the production threatens to (or does) drown in its
own mess. There is quite a lot going on
in many of these songs—a lot of stuff to keep organized and focused. Sometimes, it seems, that proves
impossible. Moreover, while Halstead is
an accomplished lyricist, this isn’t the album to look to for proof. The singing here functions mainly as another
instrument; the words often evocative without being particularly vivid.
And sometimes, or often, this all works a treat. The delicate trappings of Mojave 3 infect
sign-off track “Look Out Here They Come” and the shimmering results are another
revelation. This one, like the best
gifts, is wrapped up in a smaller package and is over before three minutes have
passed by. But what a remarkable end to
a fairly remarkable album.
There is supposed to be no succor in outer space. No sustaining warmth, air, or sound. But Stars
Are Our Home now exists as a one-album counterargument: a conception of Big Spaces as just more room
for more sounds, more ideas, more joy.
After years of narrowing his focus, Neil Halstead may not have been the
most obvious choice for the artist who would bring such an argument to the
fore. But he was clearly the best.
Keepers 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12
December 2013
