Wind-Up
2006
Centuries Before Love And War
About This Album
A bandmember's departure normally brings change in its wake, but for Stars of Track and Field it heralded not the expected arrival of a new bassist, but a shift in their very sound and modus operandi. The remaining trio members threw themselves headlong into the digital age, making new use of electronics and samples. The results are quite stunning, as Centuries Before Love and War, a follow-up to their self-produced debut EP, You Came Here for Sunset Last Year, proves. What hasn't changed is the Stars' glimmering, gloomy, shimmering, shambling style, but the electronics allow them to vastly expand their musical palette, add a plethora of shadings and textures to their songs, and evoke rock's rich past. That's evident on the opening track, with its scratchy vinyl kick-drum sample played off against digitized handclaps, sending the sound further and further back into the past, even as the song crescendos from stadium rock guitar leads to swirling shoegazing heights. "Movies of Antarctica" is just as breathtaking, leaping from the jangly guitars beloved of U2 to the drenched atmospheres adored by Radiohead. "With You," in contrast, is doused in post-punk gloom and simple guitar riffs that contrarily evoke Joy Division's basslines, the arrangement's sparseness counterpointed by an extravagantly lush chorus.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7)

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