Everyone loves Friday, it’s the end of the work week for most and the weekend is just around the corner. But, for music lovers, Friday mornings are when their favorite artist releases new music.
This Friday, July 21, Michigan native Greta Van Fleet released their fourth record titled “Starcatcher.”
The band, composed of the Kiszka brothers, Josh, Jake, and Sam along with Danny Wagner’s brand-new LP has a run time of 43 minutes and contains 10 songs that would make you think that the golden age of 70’s rock and roll has made a triumphant return.
The album starts with the hard-hitting “Fate Of The Faithful.” What is apparent in this song is the guitar playing by Jake Kiszka. While this is a hard rock song, he can capture a different sound at the same time. It’s unique, it’s got that twang to it that makes it stand out the most on this song.
While I would have liked to see the record open with a faster, all-or-nothing type of song, “Fate Of The Faithful” is a pretty good start to the album.
The next song that stood out to me while listening to this record is the third track on the record, “The Falling Sky.” I still love that even though they are three songs deep on this record Jake Kiszka still has that twangy guitar sound, it is a good pair with his brother, Josh’s vocals.
Since we just mentioned the vocals, Josh’s vocals do have that Robert Plant sound to them, but Kiszka has been able to make it his own in attempting to pull away from the criticism that he sounds too much like Plant. I think that he sings in a higher register which makes it stand out more.
What I loved about “The Falling Sky” was the harmonica break at the two-minute mark, I would have never expected that from this band, but it does fit perfectly on this song and it feels very natural to have a harmonica on this song.
Track five contains the fast-slinging “Runaway Blues,” which is just over a minute in length and is a great break from the tone of the album. I like that the vibe of this song is completely different from the first half and does a great job of cutting the album in half.
Track six, “The Indigo Streak,” contains another funky riff from Jake Kiszka in response to the mean bassline from brother Sam. “The Indigo Streak” is one of the few songs, if not the only song, that we hear the rest of the band on background vocals.
The first single off the record, “Meeting The Master” is most likely my favorite song off the entire record. “Meeting The Master” shows off how strong Josh Kiszka’s voice is and how it has grown since their debut record which was 2017’s “From the Fires.”
“Meeting The Master” starts as an acoustic song for the first two and a half minutes of the song until the rest of the band plugs in and backs up Josh Kiszka on this beautiful song. This song should be in the running of best song off the album.
It is clear why the band chose this song to be the leading single. It has everything, a sweet melodic intro which is followed by the hard rocking middle section and then is closed out with “Blow it up, to give him all of our love, all of our love.”
The final song that I enjoyed was the closing track, “Farewell For Now.” The entire vibe of the song has one that feels like you are leaving a friend’s house after a long journey, and they are saying goodbye.
With lyrics like “and I wish we all could stay but I bid you a farewell,” is essentially the best way with closing the album, by saying goodbye to you, the fans who have traveled on this 10-song journey with you.
When it comes to listening to a record, one of the most important things to me is the total sound of the record and the record, not its pieces.
While this record was great in terms of the guitar, bass, and drums being right there in your face, I believe that it took away from the vocals greatly. When listening to each song, I feel like Josh Kiszka’s vocals were drowned out by the rest of the band and it felt like I was almost listening to an instrumental song.
The feeling I got when listening to this record was that it had that garage band feel and that the group tried to go back to their roots to get more of that raw sound that they may have had when they first started.
That feeling and sound ultimately comes down to the producer who could have tried to get a different sound out of them. Producer Dave Cobb was behind the board for this record. I know Cobb from producing Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators’ “4” album as well as Sammy Hagar & The Circle’s “Crazy Times” album. The latter of which has the same issue as “Starcatcher.”
Throughout the entire record, I kept thinking about how I wanted to hear more of the vocals because I think that they were truly missing. They were there in a literal sense, but they got diluted in the sound of the rest of the band.
I liked the sound on their first two records, the aforementioned “From The Fires,” as well as the follow-up, “Anthem of the Peaceful Army.” Even their third record, “The Battle at Garden’s Gate” sounded great even though I didn’t entirely like the material on the record.
I think that overall, this record had a lot to like and a lot to not like and while it does vary depending on the listener, I think that this was a good album. Not great and not bad, just good.
Before the final rating, let’s look at The Singer’s Thoughts:
- The sound quality of the vocals needs to be remixed or better on the next record in an attempt to make the band sound 100% full.
- I like the name of the title, but I don’t feel like the cover does the cool name justice.
- The band is great, and they do have a great sound but I think the mark of going back to the roots was missed and it might have been over though too much.
Overall Grade: 6/10
