Duster
's first album is aptly named
Stratosphere
. It nimbly navigates outer space and inner space like a capsule drifting (mostly) peacefully with no real destination in mind.
Clay Parton
and
Canaan Dove Amber
concoct a lo-fi, highly imaginative sound that stitches together precise noise rock, melancholy emo, glacial post-rock, and smudged shoegaze in a tapestry that works as a blanket to hide under or a cape to soar with. One can hear bits and pieces of
Sonic Youth
in the way the guitars are layered,
Elliott Smith
in the numbed melodies,
Pavement
in the staggered rhythms, and even bands like
Jawbreaker
in the granite-heavy chords that occasionally make their way into the mix.
has a lot in common with
Codeine
-- the two bands share the same slowcore DNA and emotional heft. They whip all the influences and genres into something familiar while also being unfamiliar enough that it awakens new possibilities. They do all of this calmly, never pushing hard or playing two notes when one will do. Most of the songs ramble along with muddy guitars simple chord changes; vocals lurk low in the mix, and heartbroken melodies are slowly revealed. Songs like "The Landing" or "Inside Out" are beautiful in their own small and broken-sounding ways, coming across like lonely transmissions from a desolate outpost far from happiness. Most of the album follows this basic template, sometimes with cheap keyboards added or some gloriously cruddy guitar distortion. It's all very lulling, hypnotic even, until the group pull the rug out with a blast of avant-garde indie like "Echo, Bravo" with its thundering drums, keening feedback, and heavy metal grind or the title track, which hums and buzzes for almost seven minutes, sounding like a 4AM dorm room version of
My Bloody Valentine
at their most trancelike and abrasive. The juxtaposition of the two approaches keeps the listener somewhat on guard throughout, but mostly they meld nicely, as if they were flipsides of the same coin. When they're combined in the same song, as on "Reed to Hillsborough" or the almost exciting "Earth Moon Transit," it's indie rock at its most brilliant. By the time the album ends after an hour of mumbled vocals, delicate melodies, stark noise, and low-key dreaminess, it feels like a journey has taken place. One that feels familiar, but also brand new. On
,
put all the components together perfectly and truly arrive. ~ Tim Sendra