Modern Stars – Silver Needles CD

Modern Stars is a trio comprised of Andrea Merolle, Barbara Margani, and Andrea Sperduti. The group emanates from Rome, Italy, and with great assurance, I can confirm these guys are creating such unique music that spans over limitless musical possibilities. Their debut recording represents more than a simplistic exploration into the vast universe of specific music genres. Quite the contrary, it inclines towards an artistic masterpiece guided by three fully experienced musicians who, intentionally or unintentionally, created a cathartic journey through polyphonic psych-rock symphonies. This polyphonic album has something to do with their previous collaborative work in several other groups since these musicians fully understand each other’s aims, demands, and needs.

Silver Needles is their debut compact disc that carries seven thoughtfully written, composed, structured, and arranged psych-rock compositions. This album was heavily promoted over social media by the singles such as Lord I’m Ready and Space And Time. I used psych-rock more as a starting point or a landmark of this debut recording, but there’s even more than meets the eye as you dig deeper into the sound of Modern Stars. The group includes heavy weaponry, bright ideas, and exceptional musicianship throughout the entire material. Surely, psych-rock might be the indefinite genre that somehow perfidy defines the sound of Modern Stars, but you may vividly hear how genres like neo-psych, shoegaze, dream-pop, indie-rock, post-rock, space rock, and post-punk affected their songwriting.

Modern Stars carries reverby shoegaze ambiance intervened with hypnotic world music vibes, the occasional heaviness of post-rock, calmy dream-pop overtures, moderate griminess of post-punk, repetitive neo-psych vocal segments, and alternative/indie-rock energy. The guitars are mainly responsible for hypnotic guitar sequences, heavily decorated by generous servings of reverb, delay, and echo effects. These moderately performed guitar riffages are entirely submerging into the semi-distorted basslines. Both instruments are giving enough relaxing melodies, so you can unreservedly relish the calmy atmosphere. The rhythm section keeps these orchestrations in line with moderate tempos but also includes tons of ear-appealing accentuations along the way.

Silver Needles is one of those recordings that are representing complete satisfaction for the listening apparatus. Modern Stars achieved something with these calmy numbers that are difficult to explain with simplistic words and phrases. There’s no turning back once you completely submerge into their ear-appealing hypnotic melodies, complementary basslines, and steady rhythmical maneuvers. Silver Needles comes on compact disc, but it’s also available through all the possible streaming services. Head over to their Bandcamp page for more detailed info about ordering.