Stella: A Moment to Reflect

Sep 15, 2009

Topic: Music | Tags: , , ,

stella

Half the fun of living in a small Eastern city is campaigning to bring new, sometimes larger, acts to town so our own local bands can headline for them. Unfortunately, it’s situations like the mishap at Silent Exchange that deters our favorites from coming. One such act however, Stella, a metal-ish band from Vancouver, won’t let the police or the border patrol stand in their way. They’re determined to play East Coast land, namely Buffalo. The band’s manager Steve Chan stated, “Right now we have gigs booked through to march as far east as Jacksonville, FL. and are really looking forward to heading into NY and ultimately up into your area. Stella will be touring with a punk band from San Diego called To Walk The Night so it should be a great bill.”

The problem – not enough support to gain their work Visas. International Press, aka local support from small online mags like ourselves, and our readers, will establish credibility with Immigration services. Now I’m naturally turned off by West Coast related music ever since the Bloody Hollies came back and played Mohawk dressed like stuck-up surfers. I still love them, stop panicking, I just missed their low key, casualness. You have to have grit to play Buffalo. So, when I was first contacted by Stella, I watched the music video and put them in my pile of to-do-at-some-point.

They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease; these guys didn’t give up, and finally, I gave their album a fair listen. Guess what? They’ve worked hard, have a great sound and all I needed was thirty minutes alone with them to realize their potential. “In order to keep up with writing, and to avoid complications with touring and scheduling, we have all decided that Stella is our number one priority, and we need to devote our time solely to her.” said the band. “Ultimately, we’ve all quit our jobs and are now spending eight hours a day, five days a week in our jam space, or the “Space Jam”, writing, sweating, and polishing up our technique.” That spells dedication to us.

A Moment to Reflect is short, but thoughtful with an underlying calmness that says to me that they didn’t feel pressured to hit the streets hard. The first track, “Kudos to Mr. Chan”, makes a transition from a structured melody to this eruption of beats, chords and voices. Brotherhood between the members plays out in their ability to sustain equal contribution from each person to every song. No one element is overpowering. Ryan, the band’s lead screamer, has a voice that matures nicely from ambient rock to death metal over the course of the album, and in some cases, even a single song. The lyrics are intelligent and downright humorous, he doesn’t need to mask the words with screaming – it’s more the presence of passion that lends itself to the loud vocals. He’s just not that angry, get over it.

Congratulations on a great album Stella, we hope you make it our way.

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