NEVERGREEN

Following the perhaps timely demise of the great Supersister, Robert Jan Stips formed Stars And Stips with fellow Dutch countrymen and fellow members of the very classic Golden Earring, whom he had joined just 2 years prior. As you can gather, their sole release under this name.

"It Takes a Lot of Time to Let All People Know" starts off Nevergreen with some classic quirk and electronic/synth-forward introductions. Keys and the shuffling rhythm are met with more and more, most notably in the form of saxophones. It rises and builds softly. Cool opener.

"Judas Shuffle" is a very classic, sort of post-R'n'B kind of song. They really filled the headphones on this one. It's a few steps away from being too hokey to handle haha. Really not bad.

I guess I don't know about the form to really say, but... "Tango Malafido" was more an interesting, very minimal a capella Doo-Wop number. Thus far, not a whole lot here for me... This is followed by the electric, balladic "Music Makes My Song", which weirdly sounds like Jerry Garcia singing? Does this track with anyone else? haha. Its sister-song [no pun included, I'm sure] "(Cause) Worlds Will Fall Apart" continues in this similar, soft, not un-Kentish sweetness. Very very minimal. Pretty, but sparse.

"Carry On" picks things up, but it ain't CSNY(!) haha. It's charming and it has some pretty cool melodic somethings here and there, but... I would say this track is 'very nearly good'... Something you'd expect ELP to do toward the beginning of their demise, no?...

Is "Me And My Monkey" a reference to the Beatles song of the longer name and greater silliness? 'All I know is they're takin' my monkey away.' Wait... is the monkey his wife? What is this song? haha. 'Greater silliness'?! Daniel, you spoke too soon. Quirky and fun, one of the most promising songs of the whole affair. It makes the Rock 'n' Roll idioms herein seem a little more tasteful. Great sax solo to end it all, I'll say.

Finally we have the 10-minute mini-epic closing number and title track, "Nevergreen". Very sweet and neo- classical to my ears, piano is eventually replaced entirely with really cool, quite of the time keyboards. Things pick up immediately thereafter, approaching the 3-minute mark, everybody showing their greatest game... Where was this throughout the album?! Midway through this epic, I was struck that it was like a much jazzier "A Treatise on Cosmic Fire" (the 35-minute super-epic by Todd Rundgren off his solo album Initiation released a year before). Great thematically, and again just so well done.

Overall, a somewhat weak album, but with peaks high enough to constitute some 'wins'. Somewhere between a True Rate of 2.5 and 3.0/5.0.