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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 Morrisette.

Much of Rumors of Snow sonically can be traced back to The Pixies, but the lyrics and vocals need to be brought 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.

Brian A. Smith 7/16/2002

Hailing 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, engineered and mixed by Randy Kerkman and he did a fine job catching the youthful exuberance of these kids. The best way I can describe the music on this album is to say that it is good old fashioned midwestern rock n roll with a modern twist. I could picture this group opening up for John Mellencamp anytime. I would love to see them play live, hopefully someone at Cornerstone will pay attention to what they are doing and where they are going. Check out their web site at www.celestialstatic.com.

Chris MacIntosh aka Grandfather Rock 9/21/2001