POP MUSIC
Friday, March 31, 2006; Page C08
Stellastarr* and Editors
Although Stellastarr* and Editors hail from different sides of the Atlantic, the two quartets proved an exceptionally compatible double bill Wednesday night at the 9:30 club. Both bands were fronted by coolly theatrical baritones, and played music rooted in the circa-1980 style -- call it new wave, post-punk, orange roughy or whatever -- characterized by stately tempos and airy, keyboard-emulating guitars.
The headlining Stellastarr* basically played tidy '80s-revival rock, with underpinnings of funk, while frontman Shawn Christensen's vocals and lyrics operated somewhere between Joy Division's ritualized despair and Roxy Music's matinee-idol elegance. Such archly titled tunes as "Damn This Foolish Heart" exemplified the New York band's capital-R romanticism. The Brill Building pop quality of "Love and Longing's" melody was more explicit on stage, but otherwise the show didn't significantly expand on the group's new album, "Harmonies for the Haunted."
The odd thing about Editors was that their music was faster than it sounded. Tom Smith and Chris Urbanowicz's guitars often seethed at a punky speed and the rhythm section kept pace. A few songs even ended with noisy rave-ups.
Yet Smith's vocal melodies floated serenely over the ferment, establishing their own deliberate, and dominant, rhythm. This strategy could have yielded music that was lugubrious -- and did, on the two songs where Smith switched from guitar to keyboards -- but generally the Birmingham band sounded warmer than on its recent album, "The Back Room." Such mid-tempo rockers as "Bullets" (the group's most Bunnymen-like number) and "All Sparks" retained their aloof grandeur while adding a welcome touch of messy humanity.
-- Mark Jenkins
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/31/AR2006033100388.html
