CD Review: Guster

Ganging Up On The Sun

By Ryan Day

Guster’s Ganging Up On The Sun is the work of a band that matters. If there’s nothing else I can stress, it’s that this is a band that cares and shows its listeners with each and every album that they care about putting out genuinely good music.

For listeners familiar with the work of Guster, this album will seem a bit of departure from Keep It Together and Lost and Gone Forever as it’s evident in their music that they’re taking themselves a bit more seriously.

But the musicality of these four men makes up for any qualms you may have of their new direction. All 12 songs have the respectability of a Simon and Garfunkel song and the execution and catchy melodies sprinkled throughout the album is enough to make you want to put such songs as “Satellite” and “The Captain” on repeat.

The biggest drawback of this album is, ironically, its strongest characteristic: The album is the hardest to “digest” of all four albums Guster has put out. But with easily digestible music comes an easier time in thinking the album has gotten stale and un-listenable.

That’s the problem with a lot of American music nowadays and it’s bands like Guster that are keeping American music’s reputation above water.