stellastarr* - Civilized
Stellastarr (stylized stellastarr*) was an Indie/Alternative Rock band based in New York. Prior to the group’s indefinite hiatus, they released three phenomenal albums - Stellastarr, Harmonies for the Haunted and Civilized. In celebration of that third album recently making its way to Spotify, we are excited to share a quick look back on Civilized, to date the final album from Stellastarr!
Civilized opens with “Robot” which sets the tone brilliantly for the remainder of the album to come. When showing this album to friends through the years, “Freak Out”, “Graffiti Eyes” and “The People” are the three songs that seem to stick out the most to others; although these three songs are quite different from one another, they all showcase some of the best qualities of the album - and Stellastarr as a whole. My personal favorites are “Tokyo Sky”, “Prom Zombie” and “Move On”; “Tokyo Sky”, to me, is a quintessential song with its great vocal melody, incredible guitar work and infectious bassline, “Move On” is emotionally complex and just downright beautiful and “Prom Zombie” is just plain fun, showcasing an underrated side of the band that comes through in songs from previous releases like “Bloated Wife” and “She’s Gone”. By the time the closing notes of “Sonja Cries” come through, you will be wanting to listen to this album again and I find each of these songs to have massive replayability.
Civilized was self-released on the group’s self-created label, Bloated Wife Records, after the group’s split from RCA and the album’s self-released status serves its more aggressive and experimental nature well. Lead singer Shawn Christensen’s vocals seem to tone down the theatrics a bit compared to the group’s first two albums and he sings in a higher register for most of the album, leading to a bit different of an overall sound to this album than before. Instrumentally, the album is awesome and fast-paced with Amanda Tannen’s bass, Michael Jurin and Christensen’s guitars and Arthur Kremer’s drum work standing as nothing short of phenomenal. If this ends up as Stellastarr’s final album, it is a beautiful swan song that showed us that this band still had a lot to offer.
Although the band has been gone for over a decade now, Stellastarr have been active on social media a bit lately, recently setting up an Instagram page and updating their Facebook profile. My hope is that one day Stellastarr will return and we will all get to hear some of these great songs live again. For now, it’s great to finally have these songs on Spotify - check out Civilized which we have embedded below!
