The Hanging Stars

On their sixth album, The Hanging Stars back down a bit of the blur, stripping away some of the psychedelic cocoon that’s ensconced their county and folk over the last few albums. There’s still a halo on the horizon, but the perfumed fog has cleared as they pair with production from Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love and Dexy’s Sean Read on the new album. With the pair behind the boards, the band burrows into their pop instincts, focusing on jangled hooks and thick webs of hickory and honey harmonies. The Stars hid away in the Scottish Highlands, once again utilizing Edwyn Collins’ studio, this time dipping into a cache of vintage gear that dates back to the days of the Juice itself. With a tangle of seasoned vets to bounce ideas off of, the record stands as one of their most straight-forward forays into pop’s waters in some time. It sparkles, streaked with the sun of Memphis’ Ardent alums, brushed clean with the kind of spare, strident production that lets their hooks rise out of the mists of the past.

Olsen’s always had a knack for memorable hooks, a fact brought to bear with new attention on his years in The Eighteenth Day of May as the early record finds a new home on the reissue scene this year. Those formative years only hint at the pop winds that wend their way through Just A Day, though. The record is just as apt to lean deep into the country corners, as the fiddles on “Think I’ll Be Alright” would attest and the windswept twang of “The Greenhouse” reveals. Yet, it’s the bigger moments that come as most surprising. There’s bed of big, toothsome pop guitar under “(Keep On) Making Me Wait” and widescreen swipes swept up in strings on “Time Is Nothing.” The band’s never shied away from big swings, but here they open the door wide to radio-ready hooks ripe for repeat listens. The record is a curio cabinet of wonders, a collection of gems that shine and shimmer under their keen instincts.

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