 Trembling Blue Stars The Seven Autumn Flowers
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Blue Stars, briefly releases his inner imp in the first track here, a bright spark of drone pop featuring backup vocalist Beth Arzy and named after the patron diva of MOR sunshine, "Helen Reddy." What follows is Wratten's true specialty: the ravishing sound of paralysis. "I waited at the airport gate/Until your plane started to move," he sings in "All I'm Doing Is Losing," frozen in longing under a sweet drizzle of strum. In "One Prayer Answered," Wratten echoes the sadness around him (cello, hammer dulcimer) with tender worry, enunciating each syllable like precious breath. Wratten has been mining grace from despair since founding indie-jangle cult heroes the Field Mice in 1988; he is no closer Read More to contentment on The Seven Autumn Flowers, the Stars' fifth album. But with this delicious melancholy, he is nearing perfection.
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