Guster Casts No Shadows With Ganging Up On The Sun

05.18.06 | 6 Comments | Posted by E.J. Friedman

I don’t think I ever officially “got into” Guster with everyone else. They’ve always been this band that I heard my friends liked but I never actually checked them out too in-depth. I remember putting a CD in a few years back and instantly being like “what the thell is this?” I’m not going to lie, I didn’t get it and I guess I wanted to try and understand or get them for some reason, but they always went right past me. However, now that the band has decided to try Ganging Up On The Sun, count me among the new fans. This album is so well-made, it’s like porn for my ears. Hearkening the sounds of XTC, the Beatles’ White Album and latter-day Beach Boys, this album has been ringing from my CD player for three days with no signs of leaving any time soon.

Here’s how I see it: either Adam Gardner, Ryan Miller, and Brian Rosenworcel, who have been playing together since 1991, have matured a great deal since the last time I heard them, or maybe I wasn’t ready to hear them before now. But after listening to this new CD, I’m going back to check out old Guster records to find out exactly what I was missing. The music is extremely catchy vintage pop-rock with nuanced twists, somewhat like Fountains of Wayne with less dry comedy and more straight-ahead good vibration. I think I’ve always expected them to sound like a jam band or something because of their legions of fans. Nothing could be further from the truth — there’s tons of surf rock, horn sections, layer after layer of guitars and keyboards and gorgeous harmonies plastered throughout the record. The record covers a wide array of themes — it opens with an obvious anti-war song called “Lightning Rod”, moves deftly into “Satellite” — a song that I kinda hope we all have heard every hour for the next year because, really, that’s the kind of song it is — then straight into this track which might be my favorite from the album, entitled “Manifest Destiny”. There really isn’t a single bad track on the record, and just when I thought I’d heard everything, the album seems to reprise itself starting with the song “Empire State” heading full throttle into another favorite from the record, “Dear Valentine”. It really is a relentlessly well-made album from beginning to end.

Guster apparently has one of those incredible followings that I’m blind about — but I have to think that this album is sneaking up on people who have been fans of the band for many years. Whether you’ve been waiting for it or not, I want to assure you all: Ganging Up On The Sun is a wild ride well worth taking, Mr. Toad. I hope to catch them on tour this summer with Ray LaMontagne, and you should hope to as well.

Listen to Guster – Manifest Destiny

You can pre-order Ganging Up On The Sun by clickity-clicking right here and if you were to buy it, you will not be disappointed.

http://creekside.typepad.com TJ

Thanks for the track.

I never picked up “Keep It Together,” but I can tell you that “Lost and Gone Forever” is pure pop bliss. Harmonies that could cure colds. I was less interested in the album before that, “Goldfly.”
http://loudersoft.com E.J.

Yeah, I’m digging around for the old CD’s because I’m told there was one that maybe I heard and didn’t realize was Guster all these years ago. The lyrics are like, “And we’ll fly up to the skies on a cloudy day…” or something.

Help.
http://creekside.typepad.com TJ

There’s a song with a cheesy drum machine on L&GF called “All the Way Up to Heaven” that just when you think he’s hit his highest falsetto note, there’s a key change and he gets a little higher. I don’t think those specific lyrics are in there, though. Here’s the track. Good bridge in that song, too.
http://newbob.blogspot.com Andrew

Guster’s development has been fascinating to me. Their maturity as musicians is really apparent in both the songwriting and musicianship. They still have a great ear for hooks, but they’ve really stretched out the arrangements… and all for the better. In some ways their early stuff comes across as too saccharine, having been exposed to some of this new stuff (and the “Keep It Together” material which was really their initial attempt at indie rock)… regardless, I still have to defend my orientation when I try to tell friends that Guster is a viable band… hopefully this album changes that.
michelle

this album was great, but not as good as the old ones. parachute,goldfly,lost and gone forever, and keep it together were much better to me. I didn’t hear much bongos on thsi record, and that’s what I liked most about their old albums. I think goldflys the best one. this new 1 definatly isn’t bad though
http://www.guster.com Genevieve

Hello:

Wanted to send you a note about Guster and Jeff Garlin doing a podcast together. Hopefully it is something you might enjoy.

Here’s is what the band had to say about it:

Here’s the deal with the “collaboration” between Curb Your Enthusiasm and Guster. It’s not a Season Six band cameo on the show. I wish. But it’s the next best thing, a five-episode podcast of a long, winding conversation between two Guster members (the singer and the drummer) and our friend Jeff Garlin, who plays Larry’s agent on the show.

If you have people in your life who like Curb Your Enthusiasm but don’t know Guster, or vise versa, this is your chance to get them hooked on our…. conversational… skills? Having befriended Jeff at our Central Park show two years ago, we thought a mutual podcast would be interesting since we like his comedy and he likes our music. Around the time we were finishing up “Ganging Up on the Sun” we actually went into the studio with Jeff and recorded it. A lot of topics get covered since it’s almost an hour long. This might be the deepest Guster interview to date. Don’t fear the podcast.

Now for the technical stuffâ€¦

A ten-minute episode will become available, for free, every Monday in October, with the first podcast being released on October 2. If you are interested in hosting these Podcasts (which we really hope you are) you can download them each week here:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=196933498

Thanks for your consideration. Both Guster and Jeff would really appreciate your support on these podcasts. We can guarantee they will be a good listen!

Please email Genevieve@nettwerk.com regarding any questions or opportunities.

Sincerely,
Team Guster

Musique Non Stop