The Stella Link
Mystic Jaguar… ATTACK!!!!
Ascetic
Sigh. I know there was no way this album could live up to the promise of its title, but I’d hoped it would’ve gotten slightly closer than the tepid offering I’ve listened to three times today. The disc starts off with promise; the thinly pulsing drone of the one-two shot that makes up “Apogee” is decent enough, and I have to admit that The Stella Link are adept at turning in a good math rock melody on nearly every song. But when the same can be said about so many other post-hardcore bands, praise such as this quickly loses its meaning.
Beyond the refreshing initial moments of fury the band conjures up, most of the aggro rock here is stadium-sized, primed for an opening spot on the next Foo Fighters tour. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but when the breadth of a band’s songwriting can be widened exponentially by the inclusion of a xylophone on one track, things are potentially problematic. My taste for this album ended well before the disc stopped spinning, and my attention shifted to wondering what the new Minus the Bear sounds like and theoretically how much better it stands to be than this.
Ascetic: http://www.asceticrecords.com
