The Stares

Spine to Sea

(Mimicry)

Record Review by Michael Byrne

The Stares write lullabies: these songs disappear easily.  Spine to Sea is lazy, sweet, and sad.  Fall asleep to The Stares, wake up ten minutes later—the boundaries are gone.  This is anesthetic for the harsh lines between sleep and awareness.  There are no sharp edges here, no breaks, and no surprises.

The Stares seem to care little about their place in music.  They occupy their own.  This is experimental music of the simplest sort.  While most of what's thought of in that realm tends toward the loud, the abrasive, and the disordered, these are simple melodies, carefully constructed arrangements of traditional instruments, slowed down to the point where it tests the listener—an experiment with tempo.  The success of this experiment is up to that listener and their attention span.  Those willing to slow down for fifty minutes are rewarded with eight (long) tracks of unassuming prettiness.  The Stares touch a few definable musical forms.  Some songs approach Beatlesque ballads, some hint at traditional folk shapes, and others at the thick orchestrations of Northwest style postrock.  It's rare that any element of these songs climbs above the others, including the gorgeously lazy vocals of Angie Benintendi, submerged for long periods into breathy whispers, and then re-emerging a song later in glassy clarity.  On "On Repeat" a French horn plays for twenty seconds before you realize it's there.  A string section sneaks into the room, plays for another fifteen, and when we realize what we're surrounded by, there's nothing like surprise.

The Stares, as yet rather unknown and undoubtedly drowned out in their clamorous hometown of Seattle, seem to be in little hurry to reach that intersection with the larger listening world.  It will come.  There are enough patient and introspective people in the world to raise this band up.  And The Stares will be waiting contentedly, still keeping their own time.