Sheer Mag’s dizzying rise initiated in 2014, when the Philadelphia band self-released the first of three 7-inches and started playing the Northeastern DIY circuit. Ironically, the music stood apart because it sounded so familiar. Indebted to ‘70s arena rock, power-pop, and proto-metal, Sheer Mag’s songs reminded a lot of us of the music we grew up with, but maybe couldn’t relate to because it was big, brash, and unapologetically macho. Sheer Mag reclaimed some of that energy without perpetuating the toxicity. On their debut album, Need to Feel Your Love (2017), the band surveyed their contemporary political landscape through the lens of history. Singer Tina Halladay transported herself back to the 1969 Stonewall Riots, denounced redlining practices that undermine the popular vote, and paid homage to White Rose activist Sophie Scholl. On paper, it’s a mouthful, but accompanied by guitarist/lyricist Matt Palmer, guitarist Kyle Seely, and bassist/producer Hart Seely, those songs became hook-laden rallying cries.
Two years later, Sheer Mag have returned with their sophomore album A Distant Call. They’re still writing about surviving our current hellscape, but this time around, the politics get extra-personal. The album verges on being a concept piece, and the protagonist resembles Halladay herself. The songs document a particularly alienating time in her life when she was laid off from a job. Broke and newly single, her father (with whom she had a fraught relationship) passed away, leaving her with more wounds than felt possible to heal.
“We’ve been waiting to write these songs since we started the band and we were able to take these experiences and build a story out of them,” Halladay says. Palmer adds: “We don’t want people to be bogged down by pretension or theory. You don’t need to have read Das Kapital to know that capitalism is terrible. A Distant Call makes an argument for socialism on an anecdotal level. We’re talking about how late capitalism alienates and commodifies whatever is in its path without using the term ‘late capitalism.’” Palmer and Halladay’s new approach to lyricism extended to the recording process, too. Once the Seely brothers had laid down the tracks, Halladay recorded vocals with producer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Code Orange) as opposed to on an 8-track, which was the band’s preferred method on previous releases.
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It’s heavy power-pop so sleek it gleams. “We’ve been waiting to write these songs since we started the band and we were able to take these experiences and build a story out of them,” Halladay says. A Distant Call makes an argument for socialism on an anecdotal level. We’re talking about how late capitalism alienates and commodifies whatever is in its path without using the term ‘late capitalism.’” Palmer and Halladay’s new approach to lyricism extended to the recording process, too. Once the Seely brothers had laid down the tracks, Halladay recorded vocals with producer Arthur Rizk (Power Trip, Code Orange).
Brennan and Ian Corrigan (Gen Pop, Vexx) - both sharing a love of high energy rock n roll
music. The band percolated during trips to the high deserts of eastern Washington to pick sage
and see the sun as a brief reprieve from the misty and gray pacific Northwestern Spring. A few
months later, Star Party released Demo 2020 on Feel It Records, featuring two originals and
covers of The Shop Assistants' "Something to Do" and the classic "All I Really Wanna Do" (in
the vein of Cher's version).
Over the course of 2021, Star Party wrote and recorded their debut LP, Meadow Flower,
wherever and whenever they could. Employing like-minded Feel It label mate Caufield Schnug
of Sweeping Promises (who also moonlights as one part of Melody Men Mastering) to mix and
master the album, Meadow Flower follows a direct line from where Demo 2020 left off.
Brennan's soft and clearly American vocals float over waves of feedback and drum machine
racket like a delicate mist sitting just above a mountain lake. Melodies bob and weave inside an
omnipresent static that fills in every nook and cranny of the recording. Drawing from a quiver of
influences such as Black Tambourine, Confuse (JP), The Count Five, and of course The Shop
Assistants. Star Party's debut album seamlessly meshes together noise, melody, and harmony.
