Major Stars

***Playing material arranged for a sextet fronted by a trio of guitars, MAJOR STARS have developed a habit of rehearsing regularly and repeatedly, then showing up to record with the material fully conceived and ready to roll—and Roots of Confusion Seeds of Joy was no exception, with most of the songs (except “Out In the Light”) being run through a thousand times or so before coming to the studio and getting tracked in a day and a half. Their triple-guitar alignment has a fiendish way of affecting one’s depth-of-field, and while it is easy to describe what Major Stars do in terms of bombast, this shortchanges the tactile components of the band—a song like “Dawn and the Spirit” is an epic workout of no mean complexity, and the layers of guitars throughout are arrayed to explore aspects of melody and progression in the songs, not to saw and solo mindlessly away! The aggressive, transporting aspects of this music tend to grab listeners by their lapels and slap them around a bit, so if perceptions of sonic architecture are lost in the melee, well, that’s kind of the goal anyway.