DEAREST, CROWN
A Single Star, Bigger Than The Universe (Lather)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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Portland Oregon area act Dearest, Crown craft songs that are simultaneously bitter and delightful gems of harmonious Americana. Taking a sound similar to early REM or Angelo Badliametti's score work for The Straight Story, and fusing it with cosmic mysticism akin to recent work from The Flaming Lips, on their newest record A Single Star, Bigger than the Universe makes Dearest, Crown a rewarding band ready for discovery.

The vocal themes throughout A Single Star, Bigger than the Universe are immediately affecting, perhaps disrupting a tightly clenched sense of comfort within, but keeping the listener close with the rein of layered instrumentation. "Windshield" presents melancholy in gut-wrenching, tortured terms, begging over and over: "To What Sudden End? /Why won't you let me sleep?" The final cut, "Forever Approaching Zero," is a perfect lullaby: heartfelt and tender, without being timid. Dearest, Crown turns the practice of songwriting into the uncommon pursuit of their audience's most guarded inclination on love and trust.

A Single Star, Bigger than the Universe is like a country stream, once rushing then meandering at a gentlemanly pace, stopping to eddy, open to sanguine contemplation.

[Pick this up at CDBaby.]

© 2002 - Erick Mertz