Lea Ciarcia Photo
Cinema Stare.
“Hum and the Glow,” the title track from the new album by the New Haven-based Cinema Stare, charges out of the gate, a bright flash of guitars, bass, and drums. As the drums settle into a galloping roll, the singer’s voice is full of promise, even he’s singing about a kind of malaise. “I met you in a rainy suburb where just walking down the street,” he sings, “feels like every step moves further back through the 20th century / And not in the most romantic way.”
That first track functions as a statement of intent for the four members of Cinema Stare — Pasquale Liuzzi, Jason Moriarty, Joseph Pelegano, and Thomas Shreve — who together have written a set of songs in the decades-old tradition of marrying sunny melodies, upbeat tempos, and poppy hooks with sad lyrics. They show that combination of elements is as vital as ever.
It helps that the songs are so thoughtfully arranged. “Kansas, 1917” starts with a sparse arrangement that blossoms over its length into a chiming chorus and a coda. “Wino(na) Forever” — a nod to Johnny Depp’s tattoo — is a slow-dance for the present day, while the next song, “Sickly Twins,” sends spikes of guitar into a churning beat before opening things out in the chorus. “Ellie Nash” is quiet yet lush interlude, while “Pure Hate” is built on gorgeously shimmering twin guitars. “Balloon Suit” puts the band’s sound in an acoustic setting, complete with brushes on drums and a viola, with warm results. The final number, “In Reverse,” starts off quiet and contemplative, but gathers steam for the length of the song to end with the band creating the thickest, most distorted sounds on the album.
That thoughtfulness is reflected in the lyrics, by Shreve, which swing energetically between earnest and barbed with a refreshing youthfulness. “I have every lie she told tattooed onto the backs of my eyelids / Baby you, you were making progress / But only under duress apparently,” runs the first chorus in “Sickly Twins.” Lest we think that Shreve is blaming the subject of the song for the way their relationship went south, in the very last line he shoulders his share of the blame: “I have every lie you told tattooed onto the backs of my eyelids / Baby, the truth is the that you need a friend right now / And not someone who calls you what I just did.”
The band gets possibly the most jarring juxtaposition of words and music when it pairs the very pretty music on the opening of “Pure Hate” with the lines, “Pure hate from childhood friends / Nothing here has changed / I’d still rather play pretend / Than learn how to play any games.” And then there are the small lines that contain a lot: “The Midwest is a love story in seven letters,” from “Balloon Suit”; “My skin is cement / Leave a handprint, sign your name,” from “Kansas, 1917”; “You ever notice how the people who love being alone are the ones who never have to be?” from “In Reverse.”
Lyrically, it all seems to coalesce in “Adult Onset,” when Shreve sings, “I don’t want you if you won’t make me feel like I’m walking on eggshells all of the time / Life’s no fun unless I’m constantly uncomfortable, at least enough to keep it at the front of my mind.” Finding the fun in discomfort, using the music to process complicated romantic emotions and come out with one catchy melody after another, is what Hum and the Glow is all about. The album was recorded in January and February of this year; released now, it’s a good reminder that people were doing all the normal things like falling in and out of love before this pandemic started, and will most likely still be doing it long after it’s over.
Cinema Stare’s Hum and the Glow is available on Bandcamp.