Guster: Lost And Gone Forever : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Guster are a rock-edged pop trio from Boston who skip the drumsticks and rely on hand drums -- right, that's hand drums. This little perversity of theirs might yield some tiresomely quaint music, the aural equivalent of duck decoys or patchwork quilts. Thanks in part to the great producer Steve Lillywhite, Guster's tracks jump with a robust creativity and melodic stamina. Except for a couple of songs that try and fail to stretch this homey and sophisticated concept into full-on rock, Guster's melodies rise sharply and fall stylishly, like the Eighties English pop on which they're often based. "Fa Fa" sounds like woodsy Depeche Mode, and "All the Way Up to Heaven," with its sweet orchestrations, breathes rare stateside Air. Singers Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner further clarify their literate personal monologues with crisply engaged vocals, occasionally stepping out into tricky chorale work that never sounds forced. Lost and Gone, for the most part, is a winner. (RS 825)

JAMES HUNTER