EP Review: Four Stars – Headspace

Chicago’s Four Stars are at the forefront of their genre, apparently. If they are, it’s by a very short neck as I’m pretty sure I’ve heard this kind of polished pop-emo-punk thing quite a lot recently. Maybe it’s a scene thing, maybe I’m not the demographic that the band are aiming for. In fact, it’s probably me that’s out of touch but I’m struggling to find the special sauce in these four songs that true genre leaders have.

If you’d never heard this kind of thing before, you’d find this kind of soulful, dramatic guitar pop thrilling and effervescent. Why wouldn’t you? It sounds great. The guitars chug and shimmer, the bass growls and the drums thunder manfully and the nett effect is stirring yet wistful pop music that, in its highly-produced perfection, sounds like everyone else that is ploughing the same furrow.

In itself, Headspace is a fine EP. Overseen in the studio by Nick Diener of The Swellers, the band has produced an exemplary serving of pop-punk. It sounds marvellous, the mix and production give plenty of space for the songs to breath and live. The quality of the writing is excellent. And yet … What Four Stars have created is a perfect facsimile of what already existed. It might be that four songs is too small a sample to reach a value judgement on. Four Stars are undeniably a great band with bags of talent and a firm grip on what they do. It could be that given a bigger canvas, they will be able to give free rein to a more adventurous spirit and show some musical diversity and individuality. However, on the evidence of this EP, the band have painted themselves into a pretty crowded corner and it’s hard to see what it is they want to say about themselves to get that vital differentiation that makes a good band great. I hope they find it. Promising, but can do better.

You can stream Headspace via Four Stars website here