New Music From War Strings

Die By Light, War Strings’ fourth album, is a collection of pop excursions, skewed by Andrew Stogel’s reserved delivery and eerie arrangements. It’s an unsettled picture of searching for intimacy. Uncertainty, captured through polar opposite entries; elated and despairing, wavering then devoted. Fast fluttery tempos, angelic string lines and a dreary sheen help to blur intense sentiments that hurry listeners through the 37-minute installment. Los Angeles-based Stogel has fronted several bands like indie-psych rock band Dreamers Dose and the shoegazed-tinged LOVEYOU.

Stogel’s newest installment is not as gloomy and brooding as Prelude to Nothing or as starry-eyed as Of Aether, both released in 2023. War Strings’ sad sack narrators and misguided heroines, claw at hidden ails through exaggerated screeches and cynical laughs. Stogel leans into hate, desperation; words normally kept to private spaces. “All in jest. It’s a play to feel a bit lighter.” Album opener and advance single “Enough” serves the matter at hand, mid-conversation, with an unkempt earnestness. It is a plea, sung as if already defeated. Stogel’s voice towers and leads; so loud, the separation from the music leaves an uneasy ambiance.

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