Starflyer 59 -- Silver

9/10

I've been trying to get reviews for Starflyer 59's albums off the ground for a while on The Nicsperiment. Just to get to this second sentence has taken a herculean effort. While my time to write has been short lately, I think there's a bigger reason I've had so much trouble, and it centers around Starflyer 59's debut, Silver.
The fabric of this album is too ingrained upon my mind to truly review it. Silver has such a singular sound, it's tough to find sonic touchpoints. And yet, it has musical brethren.
All those guitars Billy Corgan layered for Smashing Pumpkins early albums. The bouncy, heavy grooves of early Deftones songs. Certain vocal moments in early 90's shoegaze.
Those are relatives of Silver, some coming just before, some coming just after, but they're not Silver. Jason Martin entered a studio essentially alone, with a duo of young, fairly green producers, and exorcised to tape whatever sounds he had floating around in his head. The sounds are heavy layers of guitars, upon heavy layers of guitars, punctuated by gentler, spacey, almost surfy tones. The result is a hypnotic mass of noise that is alternately driving and dreamy, eternal, something that feels as if it has always existed. Martin hits upon some eternal grooves, like one in "Sled" that surely influenced late 90's Deftones, then introduces these timeless lead lines that make you want the songs to go on forever. I wish "Sled" and "Hazel Would" were three hours long.
The Silver audio document is nearly perfect, with the only minor chink in the armor being a bit of mid-tempo repetition coming in the second half before "She Only Knows" takes you out to sea and the waves of the "The Dungeon" pummel you. Meanwhile, Martin sings in a high, slightly off-pitch tenor that somehow enhances this thick dreamscape even more, his lyrics more like visual flash-points than narrative bedrock.
When an album like Silver triggers my emotions in such a positive fashion, it's far easier to get metaphysical, than to bring a literal track-to-track breakdown to the table. If I'd approached the review of this addictive, singular album that way originally, I would have published it a month ago.


1994 Tooth & Nail Records
1. Blue Collar Love 4:04
2. Monterey 2:59
3. Sled 3:27
4. Hazel Would 2:53
5. The Zenith 5:36
6. 2nd. Space Song 3:20
7. Droned 4:32
8. Happy Days Are Here Again 1:16
9. She Only Knows 2:07
10. The Dungeon 3:49