Blinker the Star: August Everywhere : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Blinker the Star's third album finds the Toronto band trading its gritty rock roots for grand pop polish. August Everywhere is surround-sound arena rock, a collection of smart arrangements brimming with evocative lines and hard-to-shake choruses. "September Already" kicks off the album with a chord change nicked from Jane's Addiction's "Jane Says," but moments later the song erupts in a blast of distortion before falling to earth like a parachutist into a bed of oohs and chime-y guitars. The record is full of these kinds of sweeping pop gestures: "Right Kind of Girl," with its bloodcurdling vocals, machine-gun drumrolls and lush strings, is as inscrutable as the Ben Folds Five-like "Pretty Pictures" is toe-tappingly catchy. Much has been made of the band's connection to Hole - singer Jordon Zadorozny co-wrote a song with Courtney Love for her last album - but Blinker the Star don't need anyone's endorsement to be comfortable in their own celebrity skin. (RS 822)

JOSEPH ROSENTHAL