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Packaged in a full color gatefold sleeve with download included.
Star Party began in March 2020 as a Seattle living room project between Carolyn Brennan and Ian Corrigan (Gen Pop, Vexx) - both sharing a love of high energy rock n roll music. The idea to start a band percolated during trips to the high deserts of eastern Washington to pick sage and see the sun as a brief reprieve from the misty and gray Pacific Northwestern Spring. A few months later, Star Party released Demo 2020 on Feel It Records, featuring two originals and covers of The Shop Assistants' "Something to Do" and the classic "All I Really Wanna Do" (in the vein of Cher's version).
Over the course of 2021, Star Party wrote and recorded their debut LP, Meadow Flower, 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, Meadow Flower follows a direct line from where Demo 2020 left off. 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 (RIP Alex Taylor), Star Party's debut album seamlessly meshes together noise, melody, and harmony.
Our take: In 2020, Seattle’s Star Party released a cool noisy pop cassette on Feel It Records that took a lot of influence from the Shop Assistants (whom they also covered on that tape). Now they’re back with their debut vinyl, also on Feel It, and while it treads similar ground to the cassette, it goes in some other directions too. In fact, Meadow Flower starts with two tracks that fuse their jangly, fuzz-drenched pop with a more hardcore approach; they even cite legendary Japanese hardcore band Confuse as one of the key influences on the record. While the vocals still carry a lot of melody, “You and Me” has a blistering and chaotic guitar solo and the second track, “Living a Lie,” sounds like something that, with a few twists of the appropriate knobs on the mixing console, might fit on a label like Roach Leg. From there, the chord progressions get a little brighter and the vocals even more melodic, leaning back into that “Ramones drenched in fuzz” sound that fans of their earlier cassette will be looking for more of. With eight songs in 18 minutes, Star Party keeps things tight and snappy, every track zipping by with a rush of melodic energy. With great, memorable tunes and a sound that feels familiar yet original, Meadow Flower is another excellent pickup from the always reliable Feel It Records.