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Reviews

Star People — Black Tie & Tales
(Hyperspace Records HSR-1036, 2022, 2CD / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2022-11-07

Black Tie & Tales Cover art

Way back in 2001 one of my colleagues reviewed the debut of Star People. We apparently missed out on their second album, Genius, which came out around the same time we covered the first. After Genius, the band continued recording, but managed to break up before anything new was released. A full album sat in the vaults, complete but for mastering. Nearly two decades later, the tapes were dusted off and mastered, and here they are. But that’s only half the story here, the first CD of this double set. There’s a whole second CD of new material recorded recently. Personnel remains remarkably unchanged after 20 years of inactivity (at least as a unit — some of the members have been very busy indeed with other projects). Randy Pratt plays bass and seems to be the primary instigator here, though the 2001 set credits the compositions to the whole band; William Olland (lead vocals), Paul Gifford (vocals, percussion), Lorenza Ponce (violin, vocals), Robert Dean (guitar), and Scott Treibitz (keyboards) appear on both albums as well; drums are handled by Phil Weiss on the vintage set and T.C. Tolliver on the new one; and there are a few guests on various tracks, most notably Tim Bogert. As with previous releases from Star People, there’s some kind of underlying story involving aliens coming to Earth (or something), but I don’t find that it impacts my assessment of the music one way or the other. Instrumentally, there’s a fairly wide range of styles to be found, from dramatic vocal-oriented parts which wouldn’t be too out of place in a rock musical to instrumental workouts with flashy soloing. Elements of progressive rock, funk, and even a little lounge music show up in various places, and it’s never predictable or cliched. The vocals are generally quite strong, and there are sections of spoken word as well, though not enough to get tiresome. Some of the strongest moments come when the bass and drums work a tight groove and violin or guitar play great solos — Ponce’s violin provides several of the album’s highlights. Several tracks get into edgy riffs that sound like they could work in a King Crimson song, though the instrumentation here is quite different. In addition to the original material, they tackle The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” to finish off the first CD, giving it a good reading; there’s also a little bit of “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” uncredited in “Exit, Stage Left,” which ends the second CD. Black Tie & Tales actually took a while to grow on me, but I’m glad I revisited it enough times for the quality of the material to shine through. It’s very original and worth the attention of progressive rock fans who appreciate music that’s a bit off the beaten path.

Filed under: New releases, 2022 releases

Related artist(s): Star People

More info
http://www.hyperspacerecords.com/hsr-albums/black-tie-%26-tales

 

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