Soft Commands

Hyper-romantic death pop. Gentle, sometimes falsetto, male vocals. Instrumentation ranges from minimal to orchestral. A 3rd solo collection of songs that slice down to the marrow... cloaked in lightweight pop sounds. Stringfellow uses musical motifs from the likes of Elton John, Todd Rundgren, Freddy Mercury, and Brian Wilson. He has no fear of appearing cheesy and does so without a trace of irony... doesn’t even let you know that he knows. If you can get past that, this music is truly glorious. Hint: read the lyrics as poetry. His life has been harder and sadder than yours. He’s also seriously into death. Stringfellow is ex-Posies (co-frontman) and tours as a performing member of R.E.M. and Big Star. FCC: 3, 7. Hard to pick faves because this is so stylistically orthogonal to most good music these days. Try 3, 8, 9, 12.

1. Pure pop for poetic people. Razor-sharp, sardonic love ballad. Depth and pain will be totally missed by anyone hearing only the seemingly-lightweight pop presentation. I’d guess that’s the idea.
2. Poignant folk pop with acoustic guitar and strings. “By tomorrow we’ll be painting the horizons with the gold streaks of a good goodbye.”
==> 3. FCC “fuck,” according to the PR company. I can’t find it. Quiet voice-and-piano ballad. Elton-John like, but deep lyrics.
4. The most obvious Brian-Wilson worship on the album. Cheery pop anthem about enduring love that employs images of electrocution and world war III.
5. Mid-tempo, full band indie rock. An anti-suicide song. Piano & strings-based bridge gets weepy.
6. Slow, romantic R&B pop. Falsetto singing. Piano and organ.
7. FCC “fuck up.” Trance pop with delicate, odd percussion.
==> 8. ¾-time lullaby with music box, piano, fuzz guitar, and heavily-reverbed voice. “Cherie, Cherie, set fire to me.”
==> 9. Starts with just voice & piano but quickly becomes reggae/R&B/’60s-pop hybrid.
10. Space-reggae instrumental. Short but very nice.
11. Romantic, fatalist pop with almost as many texture changes as notes.
==> 12. Sad denouement with orchestral swells and apocalyptic lyrics.