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Album Details

• Artist: My Majestic Star
• Album: Too Late, The Day
• Label: Hidden Shoal Recordings
• Year of Release: 2008
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: mschmitt on 2008-09-15

Most post-rock you come across nowadays are filled with a certain dramatic gloom that so well lends itself to heavily layered, massive attacks of guitars. Explosions in the Sky, This Will Destroy You, A Place to Bury Strangers, all exude an attitude of negative energy to some extent. Not that their songs are depressing or pessimistic, but it’s characteristically difficult to pull off a “happy” post-rock track. While perhaps My Majestic Star don’t achieve “happy,” their songs in Too Late, The Day are certainly more sunny and optimistic than some of their instrumental brethren. The follow-up to 2006’s Ideas Are the Answer, Too Late uses the theme of a quickly passing day well. The title track, which leads off the album, is short-lived and dramatic like most days—if albeit in a slowly developing sort of way. Unlike most days however, “Too Late, The Day” is enjoyably atmospheric and worthy of being repeated. The most-used musical theme however, is that found within “On Afternoons.” Cheerful instrumentals hold back any darkly-layered guitars, spiraling into enjoyable sonic chaos before giving way to a daydreamy Sonic Youth guitar riff. The track, as well as others such as “Defects in Sunsets” and “Forget Idaho,” is filled with distracted attentions, perhaps trying to capture an afternoon spent on your back, watching clouds dance across the sky. My Majestic Star exudes warmth in it’s instrumentation where others deliver only frigidity. In fact, the biggest drawback of Too Late, The Day is that My Majestic Star relaxes you into forgetting that you’re listening to music. Concentration is difficult on this lazy summer afternoon of an album. My Majestic Star craft a graceful collection of delicate melodies that move at a natural pace—seemingly no faster than the pace of a flower growing, or the sun moving across the sky. A wonderful find for all fans of post-rock, shoegaze, or beautiful music.

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