STARS OF THE LID
And Their Refinement of the Decline
Kranky
· The ambient duo is back with another two-disc masterpiece.
It has been a long wait for fans of Stars of the Lid – almost five years. However, with Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie’s latest effort, And Their Refinement of the Decline, they can take delight in an abundance of new material. Like their last effort, The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, their new release spans two discs. If you don’t consider patience a virtue, consider staying far away from this one.
And Their Refinement finds the duo using anything they can get their hands on to augment the ambient drone template that people thought they perfected in the first place. They use a multitude of horns, strings, a harp, a children’s choir and vocal samples on top of their long, atmospheric drones. This all sounds very complex – and it is. However, the trick is that they pull it all together and it sounds familiar. To make music with this many instruments and for it to be this beautiful and immediate is no easy task. Stars of the Lid make it seem effortless to make music that carries so many varying emotions. Two hours of music and it holds up the whole way through: this will undoubtedly be one of the better albums of 2007.
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