Philadelphia’s ONE STAR HOTEL has been made to “suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” in delivering their follow up to 2003’ eponymous debut. The birth of ‘Good Morning, West Gordon’ was not without its fair share of pain for the quartet: line-up changes, floods in their rehearsal studio, car crashes and the obligatory vehicular breakdowns. Initial demos were shelved in favour of a radical rethink that involved capturing their sound on some vintage recording gear and then mixing those raw efforts with atmospheres and sounds harnessed from locations in and around their hometown.
Laziness will coax reviewers into labelling this Americana. In truth ‘Good Morning, West Gordon’ contains too heavy a liberating dose of leftfield and classic rock/pop influences to carry such an easy name-tag. The album is a companion piece to the flip side of a compilation tape that features The Byrds, Big Star, Flaming Lips, Eels, The Webb Brothers and Josh Rouse. Yes, there’s some Wilco but given that peerless band’s exponential expansion of its musical horizons it’s impossible to avoid their omnipresence. To be fair these days “Wilco” and (ever more so) “Americana” implies as much a state of mind as a type of sound: a willingness to experiment with musical styles, instrumentation and arrangements and a desire to break free of the shackles of one genre. But I digress.
What I’m saying is that ONE STAR HOTEL has succeeded in creating a captivating collection of well-crafted and tuneful songs that have enough substance and depth to extend the band’s value beyond the normal rates of interest. With each listen it’s difficult to see how main song-writer Steve Yutzy-Burkey and the band could have given their twelve songs a better canvass with which to be heard and admired. The time and effort spent rebuilding their sound has paid dividends and though it’s taken time and its toll, the end product never sounds laboured or over-cooked. In fact ‘Good Morning, West Gordon’ displays a deceptively light touch that requires a few plays to reveal the richness of what’s on offer. That at least half the songs should also stir the imagination on the first pass only reinforces the quality of the whole enterprise.
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A quick taster of some of the temptations within: opening track ‘Frustrated and Free’ oozes class as its warm vocal harmonies, electric piano and restrained melody caress both mind and heart (this is Big Star/Eels/Teenage Fanclub territory); ‘Same Town’ moves deceptively between ambience and an affecting piano led ballad; the direct ‘River Drive’ kicks off with a guitar line straight out of Blondie’s ‘Union City Blues’ and pumps along nicely; ‘Thunderhead’ employs Moog to good effect and turns the head with its great big chord changes on the Big Star-style chorus.
In the cold light of day, there are plenty of other bands fashioning similar efforts so why give this band an extra nudge? The difference with ONE STAR HOTEL is that as good as ‘Good Morning, West Gordon’ is (and it is) I’m inclined to believe that the potential still outweighs the actual. And in Steve Yuttzy-Burkey they’ve uncovered a songwriter who could become a serious contender for delivering unto us lucky, lucky people a bonafide masterpiece.
Watch their space.
www.onestarhotel.net
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