Style: Modern rock; compare to Nick Cave, My Bloody Valentine, Smashing Pumpkins
Top tracks: “Trucker’s Son,” “C Mar,” “Time Machine”
Jason Martin sounds more like Nick Cave these days with a slight warble in his voice and some gothic undertones. The Starflyer 59 frontman sings a prayer to “the maker of earth and sea” for relief (“The Morning Rise”), and knows that God controls the wind (“Shane”). It’s all more organic than Dial M from 2009: hushed vocals wrap around droning guitars with the occasional tom-tom fill or rattling disjointed piano solo. On “C Mar” Martin even tries some humor: “Cry me a river, make it an ocean” he muses. Tunes like “I Had a Song for the Ages” drone on but with more momentum.
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