Review: Star 99 – ‘Gaman’
I put the term Gaman (我慢) into a translator just to be sure what it meant. The first thing I got was “fun” and I thought that made total sense as a title for Star 99’s second album. It’s bright, colorful, and perfect for the skatepark during the summer. It’s fun. Then I realized the translation was from Icelandic. The actual Japanese translation for Gaman is “sustaining strength through hardship/adversity,” or patience. And somehow the accidental meaning crashed into the intended meaning in a sort of perfect, strange way to me.
With Gaman, The San Jose hard twee power pop band doles out hand-wrapped stories, relationships, and wounds survived delivered straight to your mailbox. Gaman looks into the rearview mirror of recent youth, finally digested. Compared to their fast tempoed debut album Bitch Unlimited, Gaman features more tonal variety and languid reflections. Despite the speedy 25-minute runtime, there are emotional nuggets here worth thinking through if you’re patient enough to listen closely.
The maiden track “Kill” is beachy and dripping in summer sun the instant that surf whammy hits. This wouldn’t be out of place in their previous album. Fast shredding and Saoirse Alesandro’s fluttering vocals have become hallmarks of Star 99. Upon closer listen, you can hear where patience has worn thin and pain, regret, and nostalgia are casting through the proverbial fabric (“Sun’s out, campus is locked, we’re like cicadas, our skin peeling off, all starved and screeching, the last 13 years down the drain”). The textured metaphor of cicadas (that do actually wait underground for up to 17 years) bring up a heart-pounding need to catch up and remember and apologize and write — but fuck, maybe it’s been too long and we all forgot and it doesn’t matter anymore.
“Simulator” evaluates performances that we do for our friends, and for society. With Thomas Calvo’s sullen vocal delivery and instrumentation similar to Pedro the Lion, the track illustrates a subconscious awareness of repetitions and rehearsals. “Call me later, I ruin conversations / Assimilator, simulated confidence that / Every time we go to bat / We perpetuate ourselves / Again and again.” Is patience just enabling our checked out selves day after day? Wake up, eat, work, chat, sleep. There’s a pattern. It might all be a simulation.
Listening to “Brother” feels like a box of family memories come to life. “Steam from hot rice and essays for college” and “sunbleached VHS tapes melt[ing] the machine [with] one side still working” are some of the most visual lines off the entire record. The gentle guitar and piano pair well with percussion that pulses with life as Alesandro’s lyrics drip like heavy drops of rain. The tender observation of the kids in this song starting to become their parents from “handwriting” and “certain angles” is plaintive, personal, and vivid. I wouldn’t blame you for wiping your eyes on this one.
The fourth track on the album “IWLYG” stands for “I wanna let you go,” a dying refrain to escape the spectre of a former flame. It’s a shimmering, carbonated track motion sick with the push and pull of a lingering, vestigial love. Melodically rich and layered, it wouldn’t be out of place in a lineup with The Pillows or FTI favorite Sobs. “IWLYG” shows how the band wants to challenge itself past its own conventions, creating something satisfyingly resonant.
“Gray Wall” is an even further stylistic departure from what you might expect from the band. A fervent drum machine, sparse acoustic guitar, and a preciously perfect toy accordion construct a gorgeously sentimental tune that stands apart from the rest of the album. The duet between Alesandro and Calvo brings to mind bands like Stars and Mates of State and works just as great. “IWLYG” and this have the strongest fingerprints on the entire album. I keep returning to them because they’re so damn catchy and fascinating.
For overall themes, new directions are a recurring motif throughout the project. Either in between chapters of life or finally putting chapters behind, Gaman is filled with going somewhere and leaving things behind. Up the hill, falling apart, leaving, going, gone, up the hill again to “Andrews”– a connected narrative thread in the “Kill” and the final title track “Gaman” that you’ll only notice listening start to finish to start again. Patience.
There’s also numerous references to San Jose spots for locals: Stevens Creek Boulevard, Lawrence Expressway, and the aforementioned Andrews. There’s references to TV and movies: dramatic scenes, title cards, fade-aways, costume jewelry, seasons, episodes. This combination of inspirations calls in the desire to preserve years gone by, emotionally charged pasts in some musical amber as artifacts to revisit.
The Star 99 bio states that the band “makes music for their friends and families.” There may be no nobler goal than to state your existence. I was here. Making music with your friends about how you grew up, grew apart, grew together is simple. We were here. The chemistry between the band is clear in their music, transmitting years in constant proximity. It’s the energy that moves all of us to get off work, tour the country and play the songs on our newest album. Somewhere between Icelandic fun or Japanese patience, my personal translation for Gaman is that the time you spend, and who you spend it with, is the most valuable thing of all. Somehow, we are all still here.
Star 99 – Gaman is out now via Lauren Records.
Artist pages: Bandcamp | Instagram | Spotify
