With Stern’s debut album Bone Turquoise coming up next Friday, August 7, on New Atlantis Records, one more of the album’s gems has been premiered for your pleasure: stream “Your Level Best,” off Bone Turquoise, exclusively on PopMatters, here.
In the words of PopMatters music editor Adrien Begrand: “Stern has created a surreal hybrid of gothic rock, DC post-hardcore, progressive rock, and post-metal, with a strong Faith No More influence tossed in, and the end result is the extraordinary new album, Bone Turquoise. If you want a good indication of how surreal and enthralling it is, you can’t do much better than ‘Your Level Best,’ a weirdly gloomy track that slogs along like a dirge sung by a lunatic.”
Named for founder and frontman Chuck Stern (ex-Time of Orchids), Stern also features Kayo Dot members Toby Driver and Keith Abrams, along with longtime Kayo Dot and Candiria collaborator Tim Byrnes. Stern’s icy, unsettling “alien pop” nods to the unhinged crooning of Mike Patton and Shudder to Think’s Craig Wedren, as well as the film scores of Ennio Morricone. In talking to PopMatters about “Your Level Best,” Chuck Stern references Charlotte Brontë and Unwound.
Pre-order the album, recorded and mixed at Strange Weather Studio (Liturgy, DIIV, The Men), here.
Stern, live:
Aug 29 – New York, NY @ The Stone w/ Kayo Dot