Great title, Scream from New York, NY. It might make you think of something that has to do with hardcore or with the various types of noise-rock that have always been at home in New York. But Been Stellar are at their first album and as young people as they are, they have references closer in time: the indie rock of the early 2000s and the post-punk wave of recent times. A minimum of trans-generational glance reaches up to the Sonic Youthbut in the meantime there are many other irons in the fire that come from other latitudes and have other sonic roots.
The original nucleus of the quintet, Skyler Knapp and Sam Slocum, guitarist and singer who have been playing together since high school in Michigan. In New York, where they moved to study, they met the other guys today with them: bassist Nico Brunstein, guitarist of Brazilian origins Nando Dale and drummer Layla Wayans (daughter of actor Shawn Wayans). The Big Apple acts more as a collector of their various influences. Start Again, the first song in the setlist, could be mistaken for the starter of a typical contemporary neo-post-punk album. We are not far from Fontaines DCfor which Been Stellar opened the concerts, oh come on Murder Capital (and not even by the Belgians Whispering Sons, to be honest). An echo that does not fade and actually becomes more pervasive when it attacks Passing Judgment, chosen as a single. There are, it’s true, somewhat remote-controlled passages, but you can glimpse a design, you can feel it slowly coming to life, defining itself in the details and welcoming eclectic nuances ranging from emo accents to a bizarre return to Brit-pop – with even echoes of Oasis.
This is where the album really takes shape and the portrait of the band is enriched with more varied tones. A delicate spleen with vague shoegaze accents envelops the melody of Pumpkinsbut pushing on that pedal (shoegaze) is above all Sweet – and here the exuberance of the stars appears on the faces of the American kids He laughs first manner. And for the same British school guitar matrix passes the most evident connection with the New York art-noise in the most impactful piece, Can’t Look Awaywhich is also the only one to move on those coordinates, with an almost Glenn Branca-like crescendo between undertows of delay and a majestic rise around the tribal hits of the kick and snare.
More than Sonic Youth, the Swans, if there is a band from their adopted city that Been Stellar look up to, are the Interpolespecially in the title track, in which the memory of Turn on the Bright Lights fades into that of Pablo Honey – making that of also emerge for a moment Something to Write Home About. Always the hand of the first Radiohead it stretches up I Have the Answerelectric ballad that recalls The Bendsopened and closed by the denser and more impetuous instrumental moments in the name of noise.
Been Stellar will have no trouble finding fans for the undoubted grip of many of the songs and for their melodies. They are not yet the most “original” group that can be heard today but from the assortment of their inspirations comes out a coherent whole – with some notable songs, and an idea of sound that could give shape to something even more valid in the future. In the meantime, there is an excellent debut to be recorded at present.
