Duster – Stratosphere

Genre: Space Rock, Slowcore, Lo-fi Rock

Recommended for: Fans of Alex G, Horse Jumper of Love, Bedhead

Stratosphere is an amazing adventure told through sound. Duster’s first full-length LP tells the tale of a journey through space with fuzzy guitars and sparse lyrics. The band does a great job juxtaposing softer and heavier tracks in creating a brilliant, atmospheric work. With its minimalistic style, some listeners see it as a warm, mellow album, while others perceive it as a cold, depressing project. Either way, it’s the perfect scene-setting album for a peaceful stroll no matter how you are feeling.

Some of the most notable tracks deserve their own recaps. The opening track, “Moon Age”, establishes this spacey theme with the intermittent beeps of a space capsule. These beeps mesh with guitar strumming to create imagery of a space capsule preparing for takeoff. “Heading for the Door” follows, a louder track symbolizing departure from the Earth. From there, “Gold Dust” enters with a simple but beautiful guitar loop that creates a lovely instrumental. A few songs later, “The Landing” gives a great sense of emptiness, and includes some of my favorite lines from the album backed by sparse guitar strumming. This emptiness lends the feeling of seeing Earth from a spaceship up above. Suddenly, drums crash in to start “Echo, Bravo”. These drums work with strong guitar on a beautifully produced track.

As we approach the halfway point of the album, “Constellations” plays. The vocals perfectly blend with the slow guitar to create a slow and peaceful track that adds on to the feeling of floating in space. This is my personal favorite from the album, and one of my favorite songs ever. A couple songs later, the album transitions into “Stratosphere”, the title track, which starkly contrasts everything else on the record. “Stratosphere” is a raw drone track that gives the feeling of the space capsule returning from orbit, hurtling through the atmosphere, unable to be stopped. When I first heard this album, this was my least favorite song, but as I repeatedly came back to the album, the track’s intense buzzing continued to grow on me. The next track, “Reed to Hillsborough”, feels like a rush of adrenaline after the events on “Stratosphere”, with loud guitar playing that snaps you out of the last track’s trance. “Shadows of Planes” follows as a parachute saving this capsule from its seemingly inevitable death. The capsule then coasts to the final track, “Sideria”, where similar noises to Moon Age play, eventually fading out at the end of the album’s journey. 

Favorite Songs: Constellations, The Landing, Topical Solution, Gold Dust, Stratosphere

Least Favorite Song: Sideria

Rating: 10/10