The Stars Are So Big The Earth Is So Small... Stay As You Are

Review

The debut record from the scrawniest band of the mid-'90s British post-rock scene.
With their kindergarten keyboards, toy-town rhythms and four-track lullabies, it's fair to say Pram were probably the scrawniest band of the mid-'90s British post-rock scene. The music on debut full-length album The Stars Are So Big, The Earth Is So Small… Stay As You Are is almost painfully fragile: the vocals are thin and often indecipherable, the melodies simplistic sing-song affairs. Yet their fine, grainy songs get under the skin in a manner beyond more robust groups: their monochromatic textures take on a noirish tinge, transforming the familiar and suburban into dramas of lost innocence. The loping bassline and droplet-like melodies of “Loredo Venus” suggest Kraftwerk’s “Neon Lights” with a faltering, all-too-human heartbeat; the elegiac closing tracks “The Ray” and “Cape St Vincent” are like a ray of light illuminating a musty cellar of dark secrets. Their idiosyncratic lo-fi sound remains uniquely eerie: a toy orchestra animated by imaginary friends.