Near Records
2006
Blue Stars
About This Album
On Blue Stars, New Yorker (by way of Cleveland) Justin Glanville makes pretty, pretty indie pop with rootsy flourishes. He has a knack for uncanny pop turns of melody, calling to mind Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers; in fact, Bruce Tull from Pernice's old unit, the Scud Mountain Boys, plays steel here. But Glanville also possesses a sort of weighty poetic darkness that is much like that of the similarly hard to categorize Richard Buckner. On Blue Stars, the delightful pop bounce of "Don't Get Me Wrong" is undercut by the ominously dark, sophisticated "After the Nighttime." Elsewhere, Glanville makes you suck in your breath with stirring beauty and lyrics that seek transcendence from emotional burden: the slow, burning "Headlong" and "Nobody Had to Say It" serve as the best examples of this. Occasionally, however, Glanville overextends himself. "There's a River" gets all Bacharach, loose and jazzy, a pose that doesn't work as well as Glanville's more alterna-pop numbers, which seem his more natural inclination. The Richard Thompson-like folk workout "Light of the Moon" also feels more like an exercise. Nevertheless, these minor missteps are only apparent in sharp relief to the sometimes blinding beauty of the rest of this excellent album. ~ Erik Hage, All Music Guide
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7)

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