Sunday, October 30, 2011

REVIEW: Shimmering Stars - Violent Hearts




Grade: 78% (C+)


Getting something over nice and quick is not always the best way of handling things especially when you try to disguise it with false information. That's often what people might think of a record when they see fourteen tracks over within just twenty-nine and a half minutes. Don't get that idea on Shimmering Stars' debut LP Violent Hearts. The Vancouver trio manages to take these tracks and get everything they can out of them in the shortest time possible. There is no extra flab, nothing that shouldn't be in there, but everything that needs to be there is arranged in a nice and simple fashion. The overall tightness of this record is very solid. No track hits the three minute mark but you're not left yearning for anything more. An extended guitar solo or jam would feel out of place. 

With drums and bass that sounds like it was taken out of a 50's high school talent show, you could guess from the album's title that the instrumentation is overlaid with boyish lyrics. If you had to picture the band on stage you would imagine drums, bass, guitar and then three backing singers wearing identical outfits "oooooing" into their mics and shifting back and forth while they synchronize their clapping and finger snaps. The best comparison here is to Cults in almost any form but their is somewhat of a Oh, Inverted World feeling on the vocals. The band has yet to escape their home town but it won't be long until they are featured on an iPod Nano commercial, or at least they sound like they could. Leave me alone I'm just trying to get this review over quickly. 

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