Album Review: The Stares – Meridians

The Stares – Meridians
(2010, self-released)
(Listen and purchase on their site.)

The StaresDrew Whittemore, Angie Benintendi, and the various other brilliant musicians they surround themselves with – are slow and quiet, and not just in the music they create. After 2005’s near-perfect debut Spine to Sea, they took five years to record and release its follow-up, Meridians (a song from which you might have heard on Ball of Wax Volume 21). When they finally had it just how they wanted it, they released it very quietly last summer, slipping it out into the world with nary a live performance to support it.

The album itself is, true to its creation process, mostly slow and quiet, built around Whittemore and Benintendi’s (mostly) soft vocals, Benintendi’s piano, and Whittemore’s (mostly) acoustic guitar. They are not simple, pretty creatures, though; these songs are strange and sometimes sinister, and are made lush and full by the additional instrumental work of an incredible cast of supporting musicians, including Don McGreevy, Jason Merculief, Bill Patton (there he is again!), Eyvind Kang, and Skerik. The dynamic range and intensity that come across – guitars, piano, drums, horns, strings, all thrumming together exquisitely, with dark, dispassionate vocals on top – is reminiscent at times of some of Pink Floyd’s best (post-Barrett) work, without aping that oft-namechecked but rarely equaled band. It’s clear that The Stares have a similar appreciation for sonic subtlety and gravity, and a strong perfectionist streak that serves them well.

As on Spine to Sea, many (if not all) of the songs on this album are either “Drew songs” or “Angie songs,” with one of them taking the lead on vocals. However, the pair sings together more often on Meridians, sometimes trading lines or verses, sometimes singing entire sections in a haunting harmony, creating a signature male/female vocal sound as pleasing and easily identifiable as that of X or Low.

I do sincerely hope that The Stares, despite their absence from the stage, are not completely over, and that they’ve got another album in them (2015, they joke) – maybe even a show or two? Whether or not that happens, they’ve already left behind two beautiful and unique albums, a lasting musical legacy of which they should be very proud.

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