Stellarium’s Self-Titled album review

This review is contributed by Azam Wijaya Raharjo from Paraparanoid and Astro-Apache.

It was 1 year ago, if I’m not mistaken, was the first time I know this Singapore-based band (although rumour said that some of the members are from Indonesia). I accidentally found them in the internet. I checked their Myspace and listened to their music. It was~~ noisy and fuzzy. At that time, I’m not that interested in ‘fuzzy’-kind of shoegaze, I was a ‘reverb’ shoegaze listener. (Besides, the sound quality from Myspace music is not that good–in my opinion.)

But my musical taste changes then.

And recently, Stellarium released their Self-Titled LP. I got the (official) samples from my friend. Then, when I listened to it, it was like ‘HOLY CRAP! This is awe-sa-some!’. This album is so cool!

The opening track is called ‘Any Day is Fine‘. A nice opening track. Lazy but cool. Somehow it reminds me to one of Mark Gardner (Ride) collaborations with Meister. Most of the songs are energetic (but lazy as well. lol), but there’s a nice downtempo track, ‘The Grass is Greener‘–full of Wall of Sounds of WIN.

My favourite songs are ‘Chocolate & Strawberry‘ (which reminds me to MBV‘s ‘You Made Me Realise‘)–it’s so cool, especially the bassline, ‘Fader‘ (I think this was the first song that I listened a year ago), ‘Paddle Pop‘–female vocal yay!, and ‘Dead Nebula‘ (!!!)

Somehow their songs reminds me to The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, A Place to Bury Strangers, Coaltar of the Deepers—mixed together.

Most of the songs in this album offers a nice wall of sound sensation coupled with fuzzes, spacey sounds, feedbacks, and white noises plus exploding basslines and drums (not to mention that the lazy vocal is also cool). This is not the usual shoegaze that I know: It’s a real celebration and experimentation of sounds!

Play it loud and headbang!

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