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Spanish for Hitchhiking
THE STARLING
(Captive Ring)
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This Northampton-based collective make indie rock the way the kids used to, pre-white-belt emo and Hello Kitty cute, with abraded minor-chord guitar accents underscoring singer/guitarist Dennis Crommett’s unpretty, rumpled-guy laments about hopeful arrivals, reluctant departures, and missed opportunities. In other words, there’s much to like about this debut full-length. The stutter-step rhythmic advances that drive "Tonight We Take the Palace" sound like a Versus/Number One Cup double bill; the breezy buzz of "Yellow Yellow" is Crommett fronting Velocity Girl or Papas Fritas. The slow "Septembering" glows with atmospheric, late-afternoon gloom. Despite its clocking in at nearly seven minutes, the best thing here is the artfully wrought "Kissing Music," a blissful memory scrapbook that borrows Luna’s eye for detail and poetic license: "Remember when the record played so good on the phonograph/It had such sweet lips and a scratchy, sexy laugh/You had just returned from China with a sigh/You took pictures of the vinyl Chinese sky." Boston studio whiz Pete Weiss handled most of the mixes here, and he gives the material his usual warm touch. And the band must have liked his work, because they invited him to sign on as a full-time member. Like the love-struck guy who waits for his girl at the airport in "Kitty Hawk," Weiss was smitten and said yes. (Spanish for Hitchhiking perform next Friday, November 5, at the Milky Way Lounge and Lanes, 405 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain, with the Mittens; call 617-524-3740.)
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