I've known the guys in Paper Streets for a while now. I've been listening to their music from their very first homemade recordings through the excellent Souvenirs EP they made with Andy Bova. With each iteration, Paper Streets have gotten not only more polished, but also closer to what those earliest songs indicated they could be.
For their latest collection, Simple Silver Stars, the Brooklyn-New Jersey four-piece headed to North Carolina to work with the legendary Mitch Easter (producer / engineer who's worked with R.E.M., Pavement, Game Theory, Pylon, The Connells, and many, many more) at his Fidelitorium Recordings studio. The result is an EP that recalls early-aughts indie rock and dream pop. It's a more subdued sound than Paper Streets have shown in the past, but it still packs a healthy dose of emotion.
We premiered opener "Once More with Feeling" here back in May. The band display a new lighter touch that works wonderfully. And the Buffy reference...
That subtlety and understated feel is present throughout the record. There's a hint of Modest Mouse meets Real Estate on "Snowflake" as Cody Ste Marie sings of cold (both figurative and literal) and loneliness. Quiet verses are punctuated by a longing, far-off chorus. "Neck" builds from its quiet opening into a propulsive pop song.
"Freddy's Dead" and its accompanying video show the level of work and attention to detail that went into Simple Silver Stars. It's a standout on the EP and, like "Snowflake" and album-closer "Lunar Glare," reveals kind of a dual personality: the calm, self-deprecating, focus of the song contrasted with the distant, just-beneath-the-surface, manic emotion of the backing vocal.
Simple Silver Stars is the best thing that Paper Streets have released to date. The commitment to an aesthetic and the deft hand of Easter mesh almost perfectly into a set I can see myself returning to often.
Simple Silver Stars came out today, and you can get it in download or cassette form over at Paper Streets' Bandcamp page. The band will be celebrating the EP release with a show at Shea Stadium in Brooklyn on August 18th that also features Walter Etc., Blowout, and Broken Beak.
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