The Stollers – Stationary Sun
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Cohesiveness doesn’t come easy. Too many albums today are hit or miss grab bags of songs lacking much overarching focus but with ambition to burn. It’s unquestionably a matter of talent. However, experience plays a key role as well. If you haven’t found your artistic vision of thousands of gigs and ten thousand broken guitar strings, it’s likely not yours to claim. If you possess innate skill, set out on that road, and endlessly woodshed your craft over the years, you’ll likely evolve into a first rate artist with the confidence and technique to splash paint across the canvas however you wish. The Stollers aren’t new to songwriting and their first collection, Stationary Sun, is a perfect example of what two expert writers can accomplish working in collaboration.
Stationary Sun opens with an optimistic, almost spiritual track, “Into the Brand New Day”. Using the word spiritual implies many things, but this certainly isn’t an artful example of canned Christian platitudes, but instead a quasi-hymnal merely looking forward to a brighter tomorrow. The Stollers introduce listeners from the outset to their mode of composition – they aren’t shy about fusing various instrumental textures into a larger whole and, as a result, their songs echo with impressive completeness. There’s a refreshing lack of overindulgence in their performances as well – everything has a reason. This quality carries over to the album’s second track, “Only a Penny”, and borrows much of the same deliberate, but finely tuned, dedication to melody and structure. “Loredana” covers familiar lyric ground with a reasonable amount of originality, but the song’s musical strength helps lift it out of the ordinary.
Things take a sharp stylistic turn with “Culture War”. Any notions of the duo working as a strictly traditional pair go out the window here. It’s a strongly topical work, but the lyrical content bristles with such denunciatory eloquence many will forgive its topical bent. Once again, however, a dazzling arrangement grounds things while simultaneously propelling them into the atmosphere. “Between the Sun and the Moon” beguiles listeners with a careful, nuanced arrangement and superbly poetic lyrics. It is another low-fi turn on decidedly thoughtful work and some listeners might long for an added shot of urgency, but it will enchant more with its beautifully rendered musical moods they invoke. “Without Your Love” has a distinctly country music feel and the same understated grace characterizing the other material. It kicks it up a notch for the chorus and drops in some lean guitar fills for good measure. The Stollers explore their experimental side for a final time on “The Two Julians” and the wildly imaginative, if sometimes disjointed, arrangement matches the lyric and vocal well.
It’s a safe bet few albums anyone hears this year will touch all the bases like Stationary Sun. The Stollers are content to revisit well-worn subject matter on some tracks, but their musical aplomb is considerable. They draw from a wide range of sounds for these songs and rarely fall back on predictable twists or sonic clichés. Let’s hope we don’t have a long wait for their second release – few artists in indie music, or otherwise, burn with such brilliance.
PURCHASE LINK: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/stationary-sun/id1057775510
8 out of 10 stars.
Lance Wright