Los Angeles-based Andrew Stogel has fronted several bands like indie-psych rock band Dreamers Dose and the shoegazed-tinged LOVEYOU. Die By Light, Stogel’s fourth LP as War Strings, is a collection of pop excursions, skewed by his 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 us through the 37-minute installment.
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.” Opener “Enough” serves the matter at hand; mid-conversation, with an unkempt earnestness. A plea that is sung as if already defeated. Stogel’s voice towers and leads; so loud, the separation from the music leaves an uneasy ambiance. Uncertainty, captured through polar opposite entries, elated and despairing, wavering and devoted. Stogel’s contradictions serve to further disorient the nice outing, guided on back roads, through bare bewitching productions. Stogel’s new album takes the shape of a fling followed fruitlessly into fall. Many of the entries capture moments of joyous love. However, Stogel’s eye remains on that creeping, undefined, inevitable end. The album’s ambiguous conclusions and non-sequitur excerpts leave us without a clear message. Instead, Stogel dives in and out of love quickly and with an unnerving buoyancy.
FCC Clean
Recommended Tracks: Track 1, “Enough,” Track 5, “Pure Of Heart,” Track 9, “Love You One Way”
Goes For Adds 11/5
