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Starflyer 59
Dial M
Campus Correspondent Review By Chad Comello,
North Central College
Dial M, the eleventh offering from Tooth & Nail veterans Starflyer 59, comes very close to being an interesting album. A product of the “shoegazing” era two decades ago, Starflyer 59 has made another disc that will likely appeal to only established fans of the genre. The best songs on Dial M are at the front end: after “Minor Keys,” the foot-tapping lead-off track, and “The Brightest of the Head,” which has the best lyrics, there’s not much to hold the listener. Dial M is dream pop (or space rock or whatever you want to call it), with 80s electronica, some atmospherics, and a dash of Bruce Springsteen’s husky baritone mixed in together. Each of the ten songs of Dial M has its own distinct identity but doesn’t stray too far out of the album’s limited orbit.
Dial M is full of melancholy intimations on loss and the process of being humbled, as lead singer and songwriter Jason Martin sings in “The Brightest of the Head”: “I was the fairest of them all / I was the biggest of the small / I was the sharpest in the shed / I was the brightest of the head.” The album is dedicated to Martin’s late father, so the religious references sprinkled throughout the album make more sense. All together, though, the relative depth of the lyrics can’t carry what ends up being a lack of musical spunk.
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