Stars, the – “Perfect Place to Hideaway” – [Pedal Records]

Thurston Hunger   2/2/2006   12-inch, A Library

Definitely a corpus callosum between the two sides of this
stellar record by The Stars. On the first, a seminal showcase
of rock respecting the groove. “Subway (aka Night Walker)”
has this heavy drum riff (it hits tune-worthiness by itself),
bounce in some active bass and a little guitar wrinkle, then
top it all off with slurry, worry-free Engrish vox. Seems
like a simple recipe, but interweaving it is this slow
e-bow drone that just bakes it to perfection. It feels like
it spins on the turntable for 3 hours, at the same time
leaves you completely wanting more. Song o’ the year material.
The groove continues to stir in “Lemonade”, You Ishihara and
Michio Kurihara are already canonized in the underground
but Chiyo Kamekawa (also Yura Yura Teikoku) and Yasunobu
Arakawa (Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her) write down a
rhythm section with Metaphysical Graffiti. Lemonade dissolves
with a false ending, but revives for a encore. A soft tunnel
out then over to the flip side where free blues rock bursts
await. Guitars engulf the first two tunes before a sort of
soft coda in “The World I Left Behind.” Still a rock solid
release that tastes like timelessness to me, especially those
opening two shake and bakers. Plus this is a 12″ filled with
sound; the band would played right through the whole in the
middle if they could have. -Thurston Starstruck