STAR PARTY - Meadow Flower LP (colour vinyl)

Limited edition of 200 copies on pastel green colour vinyl.

Highly recommended.

Over the course of 2021, Star Party wrote and recorded their debut LP wherever and whenever they could. Employing like-minded Feel It label mate Caufield Schnug of Sweeping Promises (who also moonlights as one part of Melody Men Mastering) to mix and master the album. Carolyn Brennan's soft and clearly American vocals float over waves of feedback and drum machine racket like a delicate mist sitting just above a mountain lake. Melodies bob and weave inside an omnipresent static that fills in every nook and cranny of the recording. Drawing from a quiver of influences such as Black Tambourine, Confuse (JP), The Count Five, and of course The Shop Assistants, Star Party's debut album seamlessly meshes together noise, melody, and harmony.

"Cool “quarantine project” turned semi-real band here from Carolyn Brennan and Gen Pop’s Ian Corrigan, who was also the secret-weapon bass-player of Vexx. Star Party is of course punk, but follows its own path, one that tempers high-tempo wall-of-sound riffing with the hazy fuzz of British indie and twee. Shop Assistants are referenced as direct inspiration, which certainly rings true by my ears, and I’m also hearing The Raveonettes, Dum Dum Girls and Go Sailor as sonic touchstones for what Star Party are after. They utilize a drum machine in lieu of a human drummer, but it never gets in the way or shouts “I’m a drum machine!” as these songs whizz or flutter by. There’s an urgency to many of these tunes, and a willingness to acknowledge the existence of slam-pitting, if not outright endorsing such behavior, that gives Star Party its own particular flavor. “Shot Down” provides a solid example of this, as the song itself could’ve worked well in the hands of both The Queers and Vivian Girls but doesn’t particularly sound like either." - YGR