Sometimes the best gigs are the happy accidents-- stumbling on an unknown band, or being convinced to see an artist by a friend only to become a convert yourself. That's how I was introduced to Major Stars: Hijacked, dragged to a tiny Baltimore bar where the band was headlining. And then, boom: Wayne Rogers launched into the first of many acid-rock solos and full-front assaults. I was awestruck in a way you assume people felt when first seeing, say, session guitarist Pete Cosey (best known for his work with Miles Davis) or Wayne Kramer (MC5).
I don't throw those comparison points around lightly, either. But Rogers, partner Kate Biggar, and third guitarist Tom Leonard do play as if the merger of those two turn-of-the-70s titans was the most natural thing the world. The Major Stars sound begins with the post-blues/proto-metal of the MC5 at their most raucous. Unlike many 21st century bands known for guitar pyro, Return to Form trucks in muscular anthems rather than sprawling mess. Tunes like "Black Point" and "Low Grade" are as memorable for their rhythm section's heavy-machinery lurch as the feedback splatter. Which just makes the freaky, near-freeform soloing-- think electric jazz before it was tamed into fusion or psychedelia at its most caustic-- all the more surprising when it erupts on "Black Point".
But despite what you may have heard-- or how the above sounds-- this is not is a noise band, at least in the feedback-for-its-own-sake sense of the word. At their best, Major Stars combine tight riffs and chops with a deep, abiding love for joyous guitar slop. Vocalist Sandra Barett only sometimes adds to the band's hummability quotient. If nothing else her slightly droning style adds a human presence, sometimes tough and sometimes surprisingly fragile, to what would otherwise be an hour of epic screech and murk. But she's not Major Stars' focal point by a longshot; the guitarists have a lot more charisma. Major Stars' leads alone could command an arena, if bands this hairy hadn't been banned from arenas a long time ago.
But occasionally the devotion to six-string mayhem overwhelms the songwriting, and unless you really get off on reams of guitar raunch, Major Stars on CD may still not be for you. Sure, Return to Form has the sound of hardcore 1970s psych down, even if the mp3 is about as ideal for capturing the music's oomph as cheap hi-fi's and transistor radios were 40 years ago. But for music as much about volume and spectacle and physicality, it's undeniably easier to be wowed when the band is within spitting distance-- flopping all over each other, axes and hair flying, amps approaching critical mass. Return to Form may not always have the tunes or the funkadelic special effects to keep casual listeners interested in the comfort of their own homes/cars/heads. Still, if the album sometimes feels like an advertisement for the next Major Stars tour, well, it's still a pretty damned good advertisement.
