Thousand Yard Stare have returned with their second album since the 2016 reformation. ‘Earthanasia’ follows 2020’s critically acclaimed ‘The Panglossian Momentum’ and was again recorded in Raffer Studios in Kent.
The album is available to buy on their Bandcamp page.
Since their return, they have had harder edges. ‘Action Stations’ throbbed with aggression and ‘It Sparks’ brought influences from The Cult to their fiery psyche styles. They took loyal fans from a position of wanting to reminisce about the early 90s through to their next chapter. Having their new direction accepted has given them freeing confidence on ‘Earthanasia’ to explore the destructive fringes of their creativity. ‘Hivemind’s blistering opening brings in the explosive rage of Sonic Youth and the fragility of Seafoods guitar lines. Unshackled by doubt, they bring in the psychedelic bliss of the previous album via Stephen Barnes most ethereal vocals to date. Together they create a sense of unity through the chaos. Whereas, on the former single ‘Isadora’, guitarist Giles Duffy taps into the immediacy of the ‘Version Of Me’ and ‘Wonderment’ and reimagines them in the form of a demonic nursery rhyme. Hope is often coursing through their melodies. Here, they’ve attacked the studio like a Dadaist nightmare where the concept never existed. An ode to lockdown if ever there was one.
The newfound confidence infiltrates the album’s two clarion call anthems ‘Broken Spectre’ and ‘Square Peg, Round Hole’. The former opens the album with a Sea Power via Moon Duo and latter-day The Horrors. The shimmering psychedelia rings out like a panic-stricken last call to arms, adopting a slot between melancholia and escapism. A desperate sense of urgency courses through its veins; it’s now or ever to save what we all love! ‘Square Peg, Round Hole’ however is an explosion of technicolour, as though John Squire joined Maximo Park to re-write their seminal album ‘The National Health’. Many can offer hope and defiance in song. Few can place themselves in the present, in the heart of the crisis like TYS have done here, and pick people up off the canvas.
What ‘Earthanasia’ does better than ‘The Panglossian Momentum’ is to consistently showcase a band on a journey that far outruns their beginnings. The title track ‘Earthanasia’ gives the album an ‘Inception’ style ending. Dependant on your glass half-full or empty outlook, the fleeting guitar licks are the light flickering or fading away:
“If our world was gonna end tonight / How we gonna make things right?”
The juxtaposition between the gentle sonic and Barnes’ angelic vocals is one that begins to transcend music. Musically, it allows the heart to fade away and accept what’s coming but, through Barnes, there is a route through the foggy nature of the guitars and saxophone. It lends itself exquisitely to the choices our country has faced from Barnard Castle through to whatever chancellor we have as I type.
‘Esprit Du Corps’ treads a similar path with its ethereal meanderings. The heartfelt introspections and political hope of Sea Power shine alongside the soaring melodies of Feeder as Barnes delivers a career-defining vocal. He soars with a vastness that belies his middle age. This is the stuff off of teenage kicks. Meanwhile ‘Adverse Cambers’ finds a way of combining the early hour’s contemplation of Doves’ debut with the melodic joy of Electric Soft Parade. Whereas ‘Borrowed Time’ serves up a poetic lullaby to Brexiteers and climate change Deniers:
“Leave me where I lie / I won’t be here tomorrow / Leave me asinine / The burden is mine to swallow…we’re all on borrowed time”
Their previous album in many ways was a second debut album. It said everything they ever wanted to say to the world. They thought it would cap off a great few years playing live and release the odd EP. What it did is best expressed in their single ‘Measures’:
“It doesn’t matter how you arrive here / Just be sure that you are here at the end / It doesn’t matter how you arrive here / Take pleasure in the message it sends”.
This sentiment flows from every corner of the album and has allowed them to be more expressive than ever. Long may it continue.
*Images and artwork courtesy of the band.