Circular Sounds

AMG Review of Circular Sounds

Andrew Leahey
All Music Guide

Indie rock auteur Kelley Stoltz has moved away from the "lo-fi" tag with each successive album. Circular Sounds is his lushest production yet, but it still bears Stoltz's eclectic stamp, sounding less like the work of a conventional musician and more like the complicated workings of a record collector's brain. The disparate influences of the Kinks, Nick Drake, and Brian Wilson all share equal space here, from the twangy, handclapped shuffle of "To Speak to the Girl" to the druggy harmonies and eccentricities that make "You Alone" sound like a long-lost ballad from Brian Wilson's Smile. If Stoltz hasn't fully graduated to hi-fi status yet, he's certainly headed that way, and even the album's quietest songs have the sort of Technicolor production that sounds rich without threatening the creator's D.I.Y. cred. "Gardenia" is a rainy-day ballad with attitude, revolving around a saucy riff that Stoltz doubles on piano and acoustic guitar, and the gentle "Something More" employs fingersnaps and a harmonized melody that the Everly Brothers would envy. Then there's the album's first single, "Your Reverie," a straight-faced piece of garage rock that struts and stomps with a mix of organs, double-tracked vocals, and guitar fuzz. Like the rest of the album, "Your Reverie" is purposely reminiscent of the '60s -- not in the way that Panda Bear's Person Pitch reinterpreted the decade with a dose of 21st century indie rock, but in a reverent manner that closely imitates Stoltz's influences. Circular Sounds is altogether smoother than the musician's previous work, but it's far from slick, packed with enough grit (note the slightly off-key horns in "Everything Begins") and solid songcraft to set itself apart from the retro-rock catalog.