Always in love with cosmic country, the Byrds, psychedelic folk and jangle pop, London's Hanging Stars have consolidated their attitude by choosing Scotland as a creative place. For some time now the band has chosen to use Edwyn Collins' recording studios, located in the Scottish Highlands.
For this new album, in addition to their trusted producer Sean Read (Dexys), they asked for help from Gerard Love (Teenage Fanclub). A restyling that has resized the lineup into a more linear quartet. Setting aside pedal steel and flutes for a more spontaneous and flowing sound, the Hanging Stars focus their attention on the vocal harmonies and sounds of the ever noble Rickenbacker, for an album that is a partial return to their origins.
“Just A Day” is a project that prefers country-pop frivolities such as the sparkling “Show Me The Way” to the recent west-coast temptations, always palpable in the vibrant and articulate “Think I'll Be Alright”, a song that behind Flying Burrito Brothers-style harmonies incorporates a bass line stolen from “Don't Bring Me Down” by the Electric Light Orchestra. Crystalline guitar layering and admirable vocal harmonies remain central to the band's sound economy, including more obvious homages to the Byrds (“Time Is Nothing”), and a pure harmonic concentration in cosmic country style that will appeal to Stone Roses fans (“Sister Of The Sun”).
The looser and more fluid style of “Just A Day” offers space for pop ambitions that smell of the late 60s (“(Keep On) Making Me Wait”) and folk-psych ballads of rare beauty (“My Lucky Charm”), in a game of references that underlines the band's choice to want to enhance the substance of their songs more: riff and harmonic scales prevail over the aesthetics and the still valuable arrangements, in search of that magic that often emerges during the album (the title track“Let It Slide”), and which finds its definitive quintessence in the Big Star-style gem of “The Glasshouse”.
06/26/2026
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
