Album Review: Mazzy Star- Seasons of Your Day

To an extent, I would say at least in the very early days, the band Beach House—a male/female duo, with a hazy, dreamy sound, was influenced by Mazzy Star—a male/female duo, with a hazy, dreamy sound. So how weird is it that Mazzy Star’s new album, Seasons of Your Day, their first record in 17 years, begins with a song that could pass for Beach House circa 2007?

Two years ago, unceremoniously, Mazzy Star announced their immanent return with the 7” single for two new songs, “Common Burn” and ”Lay Myself Down.” At the time, it was noted they’d be touring in “early 2012,” which meant six shows in April 2012 in California, and then a summer tour of Europe. After which a new full-length LP was due out.

I guess after the initial “oh wow Mazzy Star is back you guys!” that I felt in October of 2011, I forgot that this was a thing that happened, and I just focused my efforts remembering that “Fade Into You” is an incredible indie-kid slow jam, and I figured that this LP would never really materialize.

Well it did. Seasons of Your Day is Mazzy Star’s fourth album, recorded in the current dwelling spaces of its members—Hope Sandoval’s San Francisco, and Dave Roback’s Norway, finally arrives.

On the band’s breakthrough 1993 album, So Tonight That I Might See, Mazzy Star blended elements of the jangly shoegaze sound still somewhat relevant to the times, along with a sleepy, hazy kind of country and western twang. On the follow up, 96’s Among My Swan, the distorted guitar had been dialed back in favor of more acoustic guitars. And even after a 17-year break, the band has really picked up right where it left off, and that’s kind of not a good thing.

This late in the game, I don’t expect Sandoval and Roback to write another “Fade Into You,” or an entire album’s worth of songs very similar. They’re both much too old for that shit, and both, I’m presuming, have the desire to be taken seriously as artists. “Fade Into You” was certainly a fluke—allowing the band to maybe teeter into “One Hit Wonders from the 90’s” territory unless you are unfamiliar with the rest of So Tonight, as well as the other albums in the Mazzy Star and Hope Sandoval solo canon.

Above, I mentioned the word “sleepy.” And that is the key to Seasons of Your Day. There are moments of interest, but I hope you are awake enough to notice them. The restraint used by the band on the overall vibe of the album is pretty astounding, and you have to wonder how much energy was poured into making a record that has no energy at all.

The opening track, “In The Kingdom,” starts off with the earlier mentioned Beach House-esq old timey organ sound, before the rest of the instrumentation files in and leads the song into a slow, twangy shuffle. “Flying Low” turns the twang up with the focus on a steel guitar, and it’s also probably the fastest paced song on the record. “I’ve Got to Stop” slows things down, and bums things out. While the pacing trudges along at a crawl, it’s a song that conjures up all kind of imagery—specifically a bunch of sad hipsters, swaying back in forth in the dark of a honky tonk, the only light illuminating anything coming from all kinds of neon beer sings everywhere. “The mysticism found on their earlier material eventually appears in “California,” and “Spoon.”

One of the two songs released in 2011, “Common Burn,” appears here exactly as it did then—it’s not a bad song; it’s just a song that never really finds any direction. It meanders in a slightly endearing way—harmonica, aimless acoustic guitar, vibraphone, and crunchy lead guitar. Within the last minute, some slight percussion comes in, and everything kind of comes together—but it’s kind of, you know, too late in the song. It’s pretty, and it’s certainly somber, but it’s just an odd structure, or lack there of, to a song.

Strangely enough, the b-side to “Common Burn,” “Lay Myself Down,” only appears here in title—Seasons of Your Day’s closing track, confusingly named “Lay Myself Down,” is a completely different song. This “Lay Myself Down” is about as rocking as Mazzy Star is capable of getting on this record—heavy tremoloed and twangy lead guitar overpower the nearly nonexistent baseline and the steadily brushed percussion. Nearing eight minutes in length, it’s a somewhat self-indulgent country-rock song, and it serves as an odd choice for a closing track to an album that otherwise serves as a sedative.

For a band responsible for one of the most important songs of the last two decades, this is a bit of a disappointing comeback. Seasons of Your Day is not the worst record, but it’s unmoving. It’s not as boring as a Norah Jones album (little can be, honestly), but as a whole, because it is so muted and there is so little variation, it’s sadly unmemorable.

Seasons of Your Day is available on Tuesday via the band's own Rhymes of An Hour imprint. It's also available to stream in its entirety via The Guardian.