Album Reviews

Star Demon & The Sky Goddess

Jimmie’s in the Basement

SPEAKUPRECORDS.BANDCAMP.COM/ ALBUM/STAR-DEMON-THE-SKY-GODDESS

Strong Like Bear

In the Future Only the Rich Will Live Forever STRONGLIKEBEAR.BANDCAMP.COM

The dystopian cyberpunk delight of Carmen Cerra’s cover Let’s just accept it. Not one of us is going up to space this art is the first thing you’ll love about Strong Like Bear’s June summer on some billionaire’s release, In the Future Only the untaxed vanity spaceship. That’s Rich Will Live Forever. The world why last month Jimmie’s in the is more organic than the man; the Basement were kind enough to walls have tendrils or veins, the give us their record Star Demon land is made of bodies—but he & The Sky Goddess. Put stares out with out by the Ottumwa- an organic eye based label Speak Up that’s distracted, Records just over a and a bionic eye month after Vol. 1, their that seems better expansive 20-song de- able to see. but, Star Demon & The The album Sky Goddess continues tracks will leave their honest work of you just as imagining what it might twisted, with a sound like to be able to California lope travel the cosmos at will that sounds inorwhile standing beneath ganic, yet neca shrinking American sky. Too far essary for survival. The band told a reach? This band doesn’t really the Ames Tribune that they turned think so. to a heavier, stoner rock-tinged

We are given little information sound initially as a joke, but as about this record, except that they processed the pandemonium it was recorded in “a basement of the past couple of years, it somewhere on planet Earth.” And turned out to be the best way to from its liftoff on “Star Demon,” get those heavier emotions out. this album burns a different kind Still, the instruments—the drums, of fuel. The only crystal clear especially—sound like they’re objective the group seems to be trying desperately to escape, like after is capturing that ever-elusive this isn’t the world they signed up and fatally pedantic “sonic mood.” for, like they’ll do what it takes (“It’s rock & roll for the basement to survive, but they don’t have to of your soul” reads the album’s like it. Bandcamp description.) Track three, “Three Wizards,”

The tour guide throughout Star teases this. Lyrically and musiDemon & The Sky Goddess relays cally, it’s exactly what you would their messages of love and satellite expect a track of that title would communication with a breathless, be. But there’s an impatience,

kinda-stoned whisper. Melodicleaning guitars and cosmic-keyed synths provide the landscape, the fuzzy consistency lending itself to a tonally diverse set of tracks. It’s all in here, from the prog-punk of “My Spaceship,” to the drifty campfire folk of “Moon With No Sun” and “Song For Earth Girl,” to the late-’90s Americana revivalism of “I Know Your Love.” The faux-sitar melody that holds “Land of A Thousand Eyes” together is that good-natured type of gaudy, like keeping that A Christmas Story lamp burning in your living room window all year long. “Midnight Queen” is as sinister as this collection gets, but even it, by the end, pulls itself into a theme from some space western soundtrack. When the “Sky Goddess” finally arrives, it’s clear that Jimmie’s in the Basement thinks that the tHE FAUX-SItAR MELODY tHAt HOLDS “LAND OF A tHOUSAND EYES” tOgEtHER IS tHAt gOOD-NAtURED tYPE OF gAUDY, LIKE KEEPINg tHAt A CHRISTMAS STORY LAMP BURNINg IN YOUR LIVINg ROOM WINDOW ALL YEAR LONg. music on Mars swirls. A lot. And that the guitars there are capable of deep, bone-shaking distortion. Also, they shred there. The album, at times, reaches for the heights of a cassette tape that has returned after travelling great distances on a spaceship’s dashboard. Do they ever reach it? What are Bezos and Branson really looking for up there? Can there really be love in space? You can just forget about asking your Alexa. With Star Demon & The Sky Goddess, Jimmie’s in the Basement is pretty damn sure that when the sky is already falling, it’s best to just roll the tape. You’ll be glad they did. —Avery Gregurich something unsettled and anxious. Not bored, but bound.

It becomes incredibly evident on track five, “The Queen of Halloween,” a deliciously on-point tune where the vocals are impeccable and the vibe is pristine. Right around 4:20 (yes, I know, but really), the drums kick up a fuss. They are just not having it, and it’s perfection. Who are these Ames-based Iowans who list themselves on Bandcamp as “pop rock” but have the temerity to get angry and serious and then call themselves out on it musically? Not who you expect them to be, that’s for sure.

This is at its core a fun album. Strong Like Bear is as silly as they are serious, layering wacky vocals on tracks like “Kiss the Sunshine” and “Blinkin’ On the Curve”; playing with sounds as though stoner rock is a new toybox they just opened that they’re determined to explore every corner of. They get the tone, and they’re not insincere, but they’re adventurers, not locals—and they’re constantly in conversation with each other as they navigate the territory.

The weirdly experimental closer “C.M.N.S.” raises a million questions about where they’ll turn their skills next, and its hairpin turns are a testament to the band’s years together and its members’ deep synchronicity with each other. It’s wonderful writing, angry and eerie, sounding for all the world like the protagonist on the cover come to life—stitched-together pieces from myriad sources somehow able to join into a viable whole that has learned to survive.

If you’re a fan of stoner rock (raises hand), you’ll find something familiar here. But ultimately, it won’t put you in the mood for more. It’ll make you want to listen to more Strong Like Bear, however different yet subtly the same. And that’s the best any band could hope for. —Genevieve Trainor