Review of Stella's latest release, Pony Girl
By
Jack Sowers - 1/30/2002
Used by permission of the Shaft
"Stella" means "star" in some dead language - Latin, I think. The irony of a band in Athens taking that name is this: the chance of Stella becoming a recording "star" outside the confines of this locality is remote at best. Anybody remember what happened to the Snapdragons?
Stella's self-produced debut CD, Pony Girl, is a gem worthy of attention beyond this l'il hamlet, though. Too bad Stella's not likely to get any. If it was 20 years ago, when there was such a thing as "college rock," bands like Stella that strummed guitars and sang well had a real shot to get some national attention and even make a decent living.
But college rock's effect on the mainstream ended when the '80s did. After that, any band that wanted to reach "stardom" had a choice: sound like Nirvana or look like Matchbox 20.
|
||||||||
Stella don't sound or look like either one. Laura Nadeau's rich vocals perfectly complement her mature yet playful songwriting. And she couldn't pick more suitable musicians in this town to play alongside in Dave Baer (bass) Catfish (the other stringed instruments) and Mark Hellenberg (drums and percussion). Stella's picked nice cover songs for half of the CD, too: their version of "I Am Alive" by local songwriter Bruce Dalzell is pretty enough to belong in a museum.
I'll root for them to become "stars," but my guess is that Stella will have to settle for entertaining the people who have the pleasure of hearing them in a CD player or in some Athens pub. Hopefully, that's good enough for them. Stellar.
