Hanging Stars - A New Kind of Sky
by Adrian P
published: 17 / 3 / 2020
Label:
Crimson Crow
Format: CD
intro
Continuing to refine and expand upon cosmic Americana templates, The Hanging Stars deliver a third album of well-crafted wares
After years fronting The See See, Richard Olson has slowly but assuredly established The Hanging Stars as his main musical vehicle, transposing the former band’s jangle-powered psych-pop idioms into more overtly vintage Americana-hued shapes along the way. This third album from the five-piece (featuring bassist/vocalist Sam Ferman, drummer Paulie Cobra, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Patrick Ralla and pedal-steel-guitarist Joe Harvey-Whyte alongside Olson on lead vocals and guitar), finds the journey continuing with a calming confidence but also some subtly uplifted ambition. This means that whilst exercises in hybridising the Nashville-country subversions of ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’ with the folk-rock litheness of ‘Younger Than Yesterday’ are successfully sustained across the likes of ‘(I’ve Seen) the Summer in Her Eyes’, the title-track and ‘I Woke Up in July’, there are further elaborations on the twists and turns that crept into 2018’s preceding ‘Songs for Somewhere Else’ LP. Hence, elsewhere the group shrewdly stretch out their sonic tapestries into wider arrangements. This leads fruitfully to the mariachi-framed tumult of the organ and brass-bolstered ‘Three Rolling Hills’, the layered Crosby, Stills & Nash harmonies draped across ‘Choir of Criers’, the bar room piano-driven potency of The Kinks-meets-The Coral sing-a=long that is ‘I Will Please You’, the soul-slanted inflections of ‘Lonely Rivers’ and the gospel-swellings of ‘I Was a Stone’. Whilst admittedly, these understated shifts don’t radically refashion the core modus operandi of The Hanging Stars, they are enough to push Olson and co. out of a comfort zone and mark out ‘A New Kind of Sky’ as a perceptibly admirable attempt to find refreshed routes in and out of well-trodden paths.
Track Listing:-
1 Choir of Criers2 I Woke Up in July
3 Three Rolling Hills
4 (I've Seen) The Summer in Her Eyes
5 Heavy Blue
6 (Song for) Fred Neil
7 I Will Please You
8 Lonely Rivers
9 I Was a Stone
10 A New Kind of Sky
Band Links:-
https://www.facebook.com/thehangingstarshttp://www.thehangingstars.com/
soundcloud
reviews |
Songs for Somewhere Else (2018) |
Enjoyable second album London quintet the Hanging Stars' second album is a solid combination of psych rock meets folk and country |
Over the Silvery Lake (2016) |
The House on the Hill (2015) |
most viewed articles
current edition
The Church - Interview with Steve KilbeySimon Heavisides - Destiny Stopped Screaming: The Life and Times of Adrian Borland
In Dreams Begin Responsibilities - #15- On Being Dignified and Old aka Ten Tips From Jah Wobble On How To Be Happy.
Jack Roscoe - Interview
Liam Gallagher and John Squire - Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 16/3/2024
Nico - Profile
Near Jazz Experience - Interview
Sami Sumner - Interview
Doug Dillard Expedition - Live At The Hotel Fremont, Las Vegas, September 1970
bdrmm - Arts Centre, Norwich, 16/3/2024
most viewed reviews
current edition
Lewis 'Burner' Pugh - Bullets for BreadKula Shaker - Natural Magick
Ian Hunter - Defiance Part 2: Fiction
Ty Segall - Three Bells
David Cross Band - Ice Blue Silver Sky
My Life Story - Loving You is Killing Me
Beyonce - Cowboy Carter
Vampire Weekend - Only God Was Above Us
Hillbilly Moon Explosion - Back in Time
Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes - Dark Rainbow
Pennyblackmusic Regular Contributors
Adrian Janes
Amanda J. Window
Andrew Twambley
Anthony Dhanendran
Benjamin Howarth
Cila Warncke
Daniel Cressey
Darren Aston
Dastardly
Dave Goodwin
Denzil Watson
Dominic B. Simpson
Eoghan Lyng
Fiona Hutchings
Harry Sherriff
Helen Tipping
Jamie Rowland
John Clarkson
Julie Cruickshank
Kimberly Bright
Lisa Torem
Maarten Schiethart