Rockbites: The Stratford 4 are not The Church

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February 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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The Stratford 4 are not The Church
1 February 2002

San Francisco slacker-romantic four-piece The Stratford 4 got together a couple of years ago as front man (and music writer) Chris Streng’s previous band dissolved—in its wake also giving rise to the up-and-coming Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. In fact, it was BRMC who introduced Streng to Seattle musicians Jake Hosek (guitars) and Andrea Caturegli (drums & vocals), who themselves had recently gotten together with Sheetal Singh (bass & keyboards).
    Back in SF, the quartet put out two EPs on their own, which they self produced at a couple of area recording spaces. That got them noticed by one of the more perceptive major indies, New York City’s Jetset Records, home to the likes of Black Box Recorder, David Candy, and Seaworthy, leading to a contract last fall and to next Tuesday’s general release, for the US, of The Stratford 4’s full length debut The Revolt Against Tired Noises.
    The new LP comprises most of the songs from the band’s first two EPs, This Could Be Heaven and their EP-debut, also called The Revolt Against Tired Noises.
    If you are a longtime fan of Sydney, Australia’s The Church you could be forgiven for considering The Stratford 4 a ripoff act. But you’d be wrong to dismiss them. For one thing, The Stratford 4 also pull in sonic textures from a couple of unexpected and less-traveled quadrants, including those roamed by The Telescopes (on Window Open) and Quickspace (on All That Damage). For another, we’ve seen it before: many dismissed Teenage Fanclub’s breakthrough album Bandwagonesque as a Big Star ripoff, but that didn’t stop them from growing into one of the world’s most important and influential bands. And finally, once you get past the sometimes heavy-handed musical quotation on The Revolt... you can see that Streng is a rather good songwriter.
    Tracks on the new album are Rebecca, All Mistakes Are Mine, Hydroplane, All The Fading Stars, Window Open, Displacer, Autopilot, and the 15-minute-long All That Damage.
    The Stratford 4 play a record release party 10 February at San Francisco’s Café Du Nord, and will play The Crocodile in Seattle along with The Turn Ons and Voyager One on the 16th.
    We’ll give their debut full-length three bites out of five and look forward to their next surprise.

Rockbites ratings  5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying.

| Stratford 4 | | Hydroplane (full length MP3) | | CD from Amazon US | | top of page |

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