Orange Glass
Interstellar Interstellar
Squirtgun records

Orange Glass (a side-project of the now long gone Eric's Trip), is an incredibly nice sounding group. The songs are poppy, and range from fast-pace and fuzzy to somewhat mellow and liquid. The album has a cool and magical feel to it that lets it be enjoyable in a variety of settings and moods. Neither hyper nor depressing but always appropriate. Interstellar Interstellar is a wonderful album, the music is easily describable as your usual fuzz-pop sound but it has an undertone that is softer and almost heavenly.

The album starts out fast with Saturn And The Moon, a wonderful fuzzy, heartbreak and happiness song. The next song, Wait A Day, is considerably cruder, with an almost Superchunk-ish feel, interrupting the more mellow transition which the following tracks encourage. The vocals are dreamy, quiet, and smooth, tending to blend more with the crackling guitar sounds in an Eric's Trip-ish way.

One of my very favorite songs on this album is certainly Nashville. It is subtle, quiet and has a lovely, tender lilt that builds up and quiets down again with calculated ease, and celestial charm. The rest of the album is pretty much an irregular and well-done alternation between fast, perky, fairly interesting compositions, and more quiet, soft and magical songs. Although I prefer the latter form on this album (tracks like Flashing Yellow especially), I find that they are still well-integrated into the album, that is the constant alternation does not disturb the atmosphere in an unpleasant way. For the most part, the album maintains a certain feel consistently in every track, with some difficulties.

This is a great album, the vocals are wonderful, the instrumentation is magical, and the overall effect is entirely pleasant. Orange Glass can go all over the place and take you right back again without you ever noticing where you went, in a split second, without shaking you up one bit.

Squirtgun records, 689 Queen St. west, Box 167, Toronto, ON, Canada m6j 1e6.

Copyright © 1997 Laura Bowman