What’s all the fuss about Straylight Run being a flock of ill-reformed emo kids? The band’s new release, “The Needles The Space,” crafts a delightful duality of layered brother-sister sound that will either change Straylight’s fan base forever, or at least show signs of a shifting scene.
It’s about time some experimental indie swam up the mainstream.
While the emo kids drown in their abject screams, Straylight Run delivers an album of actual substance, emphasis on “actual” and “substance.”
Experimenting with a multitude of different sounds, elements and instrumentations, these indie-pop partisans create a peculiar mix of organic and eccentric. (Note the earthy, flora-fauna album art.)
Horns, strings, accordion and hints of freakish dub electronica turn these pedantic indie scenesters into more adventurous hipsters.
The Big Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as these rural New York natives experiment like the best of them (ranging from fellow New York experimentalists, Barbez or Blues Control), but of course, not as blunt.
The band’s second major release, “The Needles The Space,” is experimental unpredictability at its best, consistently jumping from one idea to another.
A mandolin, a clarinet, a glockenspiel and some tribal drums too? In all honesty, when has a single emo outfit ventured beyond a weakly produced meter change to add a slight sense of originality to a song or an album?
Vocally, the band shows greater strengths than seen on its first self-titled release.
Whether she’s performing in the foreground or backing up big brother John Nolan, Michelle DaRosa’s vocals are sugary sweet on songs like “The Miracle That Never Came” and “Buttoned Down,” layering silky sheets of lyrical and vocal depth.
This power hour of experimental indie-pop is a hop, skip and a big jump in a curious new direction for Straylight Run. And, most importantly, it works.
Above all the hubbub about who’s emo and who’s not, “The Needles The Space” is a more than successful declassification and reconstruction of Straylight’s true ambitions, turning over new leaves for Nolan and the rest of the group.
Straylight may have ironically summed up its emotional nemesis on track six, “Cover Your Eyes.” Yes, those eyeliner-laden punks are “phony and frightening.”
Straylight proves to be neither phony nor frightening throughout the album, even though the exceedingly eerie “untitled” track does straddle the line.
But, for those of you who can’t live without those formulaic emo histrionics we all heard several years ago on “Existentialism On Prom Night,” the final song, “The First of The Century,” conjures up latent demons. Well, you can’t win them all.
With the exception of a few choice fillers, “The Needles The Space” is a trippy little job well done, showing signs of life within a dying scene.
