Seattle\u2019s Guest Directors are spearheaded by Gary Thorstensen (ex-TAD) and Julie D (ex-Chinchilla), who crossed paths in 2014 and discussed their love of power pop and \u201960s folk-rock. Add Rian Turner and Charles Russo to the equation, and you\u2019ve got a band with a shoegaze template that recruits many, many influences for this nine-song album.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeet You On The Land\u201d starts with Thorstensen\u2019s bright guitar and Turner\u2019s punchy drumming alongside D\u2019s flowing and melodic vocals that suit the swirling climate. \u201cYou Are Never\u201d follows, and makes great use of Russo\u2019s intricate bass, as both D and Thorstensen contribute vocals to a post-punk influenced delivery.<\/p>\n
Closer to the middle, the mesmerizing \u201cNow I Know\u201d is a bit rugged but certainly still melodic, while \u201cJust Not Today\u201d offers a dual guitar attack that\u2019s drenched in harmonics and timeless shoegaze flavor.<\/p>\n
The remainder of the album is just as great. \u201cSo Many Somedays\u201d uses a prettiness with D handling piano, too, plus some background ambience, and \u201cRestore Your Soul\u201d places Thorstensen on lead vocals, where the meticulous rhythm section emits a hint of mystery and even darkness.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlame Pandora,\u201d one of the album\u2019s best (though there isn\u2019t a bad tune in the bunch), builds into a swift and nearly dance floor friendly moment of noisey-pop, before \u201cAt The Gate\u201d slows things down with a distinct coziness. \u201cWhat Shapes They Take\u201d exits, and recruits a rare dreaminess that\u2019s soulful, intimate and balances thick layers of reverb amid a striking beauty.<\/p>\n
You might be reminded of Unwound, Sonic Youth, Swervedriver, Afghan Whigs or Rainer Maria here, which could never be a bad thing, and if jazz, reverb, psychedelic, post-everything and Dreamgaze are sounds you gravitate to, Guest Directors could be your new favorite band. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":35498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10923],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-47396","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-guest-directors","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47396"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}