Sunday, November 10, 2019

Starpoint Electric - Bad Directions (1999, Plastique)

Rock from Chapel Hill, NC that doesn't necessarily sound like it could have come from the realm of Merge Records?   The now long-gone Starpoint Electric weren't entirely oblivious to the more strident forces in the indie realm of their era, yet they bore their own brand of pent-up crankiness, albeit with plentiful degrees of separation from say, Superchunk and Archers of Loaf.  This quartet had an angularity to 'em that landed somewhere between the first couple of Spoon albums, and Tommy Stinson's post Replacements endeavors Bash & Pop and Perfect.  Bad Directions is guitarsy as-all-get-out, with tinctures of chiming minor chords and self-described "dark pop beauty."  Earth shattering?  Not quite, but "December," "Reconnected" and pretty much anywhere else the laser lands make the case Starpoint should have stayed at the party a little longer.

01. Bad Directions
02. Reconnected
03. Let My Brother Lie
04. Bitter Happiness
05. December
06. Radio Wasterland
07. Write You Off

 Hear

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