A Review by The Phantom Tollbooth


Fell in Love at 22 Artist: Starflyer 59 Label: Tooth & Nail Length: 5 Songs

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's 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 of 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.

Keith Giles (4/5/99)

Spotlighting a track from SF59's fourth LP, "The Fashion Focus," this collection finds vocalist/guitarist Jason Martin toning down the noise in his noise-pop considerably. Earlier musical touchstones such as My Bloody Valentine and Ride yield to Bernard Butler a la People Move On during Martin's bittersweet title cut. The familiar wall of fuzz reappears only briefly, during "E.P. Nights."

"We Want it Bad," notable among four non-LP sides, suggests, dare I say, a melancholy swipe at 10cc's "I'm Not in Love." The instrumental "Traffic Jam" insinuates Chris Isaak at his most depressed. Though pretty, it risks becoming nearly as tiresome as its namesake at fourteen minutes.

While perhaps not a supremely confident singer, Martin sounds more comfortable with his breathy pipes than ever. He manages several nice melodies to complement his achy-echoey guitar lines.

Jeff Elbel (8/20/99)