I took one look at the photograph on The Birth's album cover, at that maniacal face contorted into an expression that lingers in the unsettling middle ground between a cackle and a scream, and thought to myself, “With a name like Stardeath and White Dwarfs, this is obviously some kind of terrifying noise band.” Imagine my disappointment, then, when I popped the CD into my Sony Discman (yes, I will cling to a dying technology until it rots away beneath my fingers) and was greeted by a badly disguised rip-off of “Lord of This World.” Turns out Stardeath is the brainchild of Dennis Coyne, and if that last name looks familiar, it's because Dennis is the nephew of The Flaming Lips' fearlessly freaky front man. Young master Coyne tries to apply his uncle's fractured psychedelia to a style that's already fairly steeped in trippiness. The results are middling, a record that fails to establish a distinctive voice among the drugged-out haze of its contemporaries.
In the Dwarfs' defense, the musicianship on The Birth is solid, and the production values are appropriately minimal, giving this album the ambiance of a skuzzy 70s rock album. But the lack of a distinctive identity is crippling. In spite of his best efforts (or maybe because of them), Dennis Coyne repeatedly comes across as a pale imitation of Wayne. On tracks like the spacey acoustic ballad “Smoking Pot Makes Me Not Want to Kill Myself,” he could easily be a younger version of his uncle. These similarities are only exacerbated by his lyrical choices. Coyne crafts images that echo his uncle's style (“I love that girl/ With the lazer hair,” “New Heat”) or that pull figures directly from The Flaming Lips' songs (“You got no cause, you got no craze/ A superman without a face,” “The Age of the Freak”).
Apart from the vocals and lyrical content, the songs are decent enough but lack the kind of left-field nimbleness that makes Sleepy Sun or Comets on Fire so engaging. Minor embellishments, like the tape manipulations on the title track or the electronic enhancements on “I Can't Get Away,” feel tacked on and bring little in the way of freshness to an album that sounds like warmed-over Pink Floyd performed by a Flaming Lips cover band.
It's not all bad, by any means. There's a richness to the soothing “Country Ballad,” despite it being easily lost amid a second half dominated by too many down-tempo songs. And the syncopated shuffle of “Those Who Are from the Sun Return to the Sun,” my favorite track on the album, is almost dance-worthy and features clever bass work by Casey Joseph. But these high points are sadly not quite high enough to redeem the album. The Birth is the work of a band that would stand on the shoulders of giants without making any serious effort to see farther into the distance.
1. The Sea Is on Fire
2. New Heat
3. Keep Score
4. The Birth
5. Those Who Are from the Sun Return to the Sun
6. I Can't Get Away
7. The Age of the Freak
8. Country Ballad
9. The March
10. Smokin' Pot Makes Me Not Want to Kill Myself
More about: Stardeath and White Dwarfs
