Star Room Boys

Star Room Boys

Thayer Sarrano

Thayer Sarrano: Bells “There's a way that light comes through trees / that makes me still believe.” So sings Thayer Sarrano in the opening to “Golden Leaves of My Mind,” one of the many standout tracks on her new album, Bells. It’s an apt image from a songwriter who often yearns for illumination—sometimes via her lyrics, sometimes via the sound itself, as pedal steel, organ lines, and Thayer’s crisp, spectral voice glide by like deep-sea creatures lit by their overhanging bioluminescent lamps; for brief moments we see, or hear, something bright, sharply defined, and breathtaking moving through the darkness. Then we’re back to the opaque. Bells is the latest in a line of assured records from an artist whose songs lay down their dense atmosphere without stinting on melodic hooks. Thayer rocks (“Carried Away”); she shuffles (“Bells”); she swings between mesmeric drone and brisk beat (“Both Sides of the Door”). Ably assisted by Marlon Patton on drums and bass, Rick Lollar on baritone guitar, and Matt “Pistol” Stoessel on pedal steel, Bells attempts its mystical summit from a basecamp of sonic beauty. On “I Almost See It,” Sarrano sings, “I almost see it, tracing my hands / I almost see it, when we calm down.” And on “In the Clear”: “Here come choirs of angels, singing through the veil / And ringing golden bells, now we see, now we see.” Thayer’s upbringing in coastal south Georgia, where cathedral and swamp commingled, is never far from the surface. Throughout these immersive songs, the numinous blends with more-tangible ruminations on personal and relationship uncertainty (“The Door,” “Rose”) and hints of current geopolitical events (“Right Here Instead”). It's a vision that invites in rather than projects out; a listener need not be consciously spiritual to be moved. Sarrano has been consolidating her strengths since launching her career in the early 2000s from her sometime home base of Athens, Georgia. Earlier efforts such as Lift Your Eyes to the Hills, Shaky, Wings Alleluia, and the stunning live LP Acoustic Chamber have earned her critical praise and a devoted following. In concert settings, she can lull a boisterous room to rapt attention with the aid of just an acoustic guitar or fill the space with walls of voluminous sound with her ensemble. A classically trained pianist and versatile multi-instrumentalist, she has also found herself consistently in-demand as a session player and touring musician, having worked extensively with Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven, Of Montreal, Jessie Baylin, T. Hardy Morris, and many other groups and performers. In a career that has seen no creative dips, Bells stands confidently poised to bring this fine artist, now dividing her time between Athens and Nashville, to the wider audience she deserves. Her spell, cast years ago, moves ever outward, unerring and unhurried. There is no mistaking its authenticity or its source. -Robert Dean Lurie