Starling Electric: Clouded Staircase

First released in 2006, then reissued in August

2008 by Bar None, Starling Electric's debut album, Clouded Staircase, belongs in the same

genre of lo-fi, chopped-up power-pop pioneered by Guided By Voices, except that

Starling Electric bandleader Caleb Dillon has a different set of obsessions

than GBV's Robert Pollard. Pollard is all about The Who, The Beatles, and trace

elements of '70s prog; Dillon prefers the sunny sounds of '60s SoCal. Clouded

Staircase moves

freely from the baroque Beach Boys riff of "Camp-Fire" to the sparkly

guitar-pop of "Black Ghost/Black Girl," and though the album is sometimes so

eclectic in approach that it lacks focus, Starling Electric holds the record

together with the quality of its performance—far more intricate and

accomplished than the average indie-rock act—and the breadth of its

enthusiasm. Listening to this album is a lot like spending a happy afternoon

with a group of unpretentious archivists as they pull one discovery after

another out of their collections, saying, "Yes, but have you heard this"