Review: DAIISTAR, Good Time (Fuzz Club)

Pandemic-formed act DAIISTAR seems to have fallen from the sky, crash-landing its layered neo-psychedelia into a record deal three years later with London label Fuzz Club (King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, the Black Angels). The shockwave continues on the quartet's 10-track debut, produced by Angels bandleader Alex Maas. Good Time deals in familiar revelries, fleshing out traditional counterculture ethos ("Fuck the man/ This is our time") with shoegaze lilts and gritty, industrial guitar tone. Distortion whittles guitarist and vocalist Alex Capistran's voice down to sweet rock candy, melding a Damon Albarn whine with inflection-averse nonchalance. Melodies delightfully swim through gooey reverb – layers so thick that the project is at risk of bleeding together. But loose embellishments rebut that first-listen assumption: Infectiously warped bongos sit right in the pocket on "Star Starter," a pedal fragments "Repeater" into sonic speed bumps, a luminous synth line steers through the noise of "Parallel." Closer "Velvet Reality" diverts from the album's playful powerhouses in its romantically devastating slow burn. Dual-threat Capistran bald-faced begs, "Mother, mother, help me," between stretches of melancholic lap steel twang. Hope remains, however. "Together, we're free/ And they can't stop us now," Capistran croons on the chorus, carrying forth the momentary ecstasy that DAIISTAR champions right there in the album title.

DAIISTAR