When Canadian band Foxwarren released its self-titled debut album in 2018, it won a Juno Award for alternative album of the year. Frontman Andy Shauf continued his solo career, band members moved to different cities, and then the pandemic made it impossible for Foxwarren to get together to record in the same room as they had for their first record.
Walk into any store or flip on a radio, and you'll probably hear the Police's "Every Breath You Take" sooner or later. Thanks to that ubiquity, the swooning, menacing megahit's songwriter-Sting-is a very wealthy man. Now, his former bandmates, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers, are suing Sting over who deserves to profit from "Breath" and other Police songs.. No matter how that dispute turns out, it's a reminder of Sting's uncanny songwriting skill and his charmed life of hitmaking.
Something Stars of the Lid were already very good at in this nascent stage was making drones that had an uncanny animation, as if their tracks were creatures and you could sense the life moving through them. The opening "Before Top Dead Center" is a darkly brooding piece of gently throbbing guitar feedback, and the swaying modulations suggest respiration, as if we're watching the coiled potential of a giant reptile as it sleeps.