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All Music Guide Perhaps June Star frontman Andrew Grimm should get together with Willy Vlautin of Richmond Fontaine and form a support group called "Alt-Country Singer/Songwriters Who Sound a Lot Like Jay Farrar Without Really Trying." Like Vlautin, Grimm's curse (if that's the right word) is that his voice bears more than a passing resemblance to that of the former leader of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt, which is compounded by the fact that the slow, thoughtful drift of many of the songs on June Star's third album, Sugarbird, gives them a sound and feel not unlike much of the best material on Trace. But like Richmond Fontaine's work, if you look past the surfaces on Sugarbird, it becomes clear that Andrew Grimm is a songwriter with a style very much his own. Significantly more direct and less oblique than Farrar, Grimm's lyrics deal with the nuances of life along the margins in his hometown of Baltimore, from playing a gig when even your own dad heckles you ("Baltimore") to the desperate need to blow town before love and geography can crush you (Mexico"). Grimm's stories are smart, concise, and effective, and his guitar (coupled with multi-instrumentalist Tim Bracken, who is the only other player on most of these tunes) conveys both the space and the isolation of the big, decaying city with surprising skill. Sugarbird is a strong and compelling album from a band that certainly deserves a higher profile on the current alt-country scene, and hopefully work of this caliber will not be overlooked.
Washington Post The first song that stands out on "Sugarbird," the new CD by the alt-country group June Star, is "Baltimore," a working band's blues. Lead vocalist and songwriter Andrew Grimm gets the tone just right, delivering the lyrics with a mixture of despair and determination: "Nobody came, but my band still played / We just closed our eyes and made believe . . . we got two channels of 700 watts / We're gonna give it all we got, tonight." Sparsely arranged and often emotionally bleak, "Sugarbird" isn't exactly bursting with songs that are likely to draw a big crowd -- in Baltimore, the band's home base, or anywhere else. But Grimm and his compatriots have nevertheless carved out an interesting niche for themselves, a little left of the alt-country center and not far from the kind of thinking man's folk associated with the late Townes Van Zandt. Granted, Grimm's warble takes some getting used to; there are times when he doesn't sing so much as drone. But it's the sort of voice that eventually gets under your skin if you listen long enough, and that's even more true of the best songs on "Sugarbird," including the haunting, Van Zandt-like ballad "Home" and the wry, rhythmically loping lament "Belly."
Smother.Net Baltimore’s June Star has assembled a great fourth album that blends alt-country with what R.E.M. did years ago. As a member of the Toadfish Collective, which also boasts Mark McKay, Jon Nolan, and others, June Star has the distinctiveness to separate themselves from the group while never straying into musical isolation. With pop’s ability to scream of catchiness and country’s familiar sensibility (check out “Baltimore”’s lamentations of playing gigs), June Star’s “Sugarbird” is an album that no one should miss.
Miles of Music This is the fourth CD from Baltimore-based June Star, and it's a satisfying and thoughtful effort that finds the band driving a deeper, harder edged groove than previously. While everything plays consistently warm and fuzzy with crunchy guitars and lazy roots rock accompaniment, they still infuse their overall sound with some mandolin and banjo here and there. The whole affair is run through with band leader Andrew Grimm's nasal baritone, instilling a heart-wrenching tone of disparity and loss. At its lowest, most melancholic moment, the song "Acetone" recalls Richard Buckner. On the more driving end, clear comparisons can me made to Son Volt. "Once Knew" marches along like a Civil War era folk standard while album closer "Way Down" is a loose waltz that finds the end of the rope for a relationship, ultimately offering freedom for at least one. With each listen, Sugarbird develops into a powerful, personal statement for Grimm - and not an altogether hopeless one at that.
9x Online Magazine This Baltimore-based outfit has one tuneful shuffle on its new CD that almost any bar band in the world can relate to. Titled in honor of the ol’ hometown, “Baltimore” is an upbeat lament about those too-often times when the band members are the only living, breathing souls who show up for the gig. The guys know what they are talking about because at one recent Richmond show very few showed to hear the band. And that’s too bad, because June Star is a good, rockin’ band capable of hitting on many cylinders. There are obvious influences by Crazy Horse, Son Volt and Slobberbone but the band has its own sound. Led by songwriter/ singer/ guitarist Andrew Grimm, the group mixes restrained electric crunch with acoustic guitars and banjo to good effect. There are plenty of tones and textures to keep things moving. Grimm has a way of mumbling that is distracting and his lyrics are too often clouded in mystery to get the whole point across but maybe that’s just the point. In any event, the songs work. “Giants” is a tidy acoustic-based tune and “Acetone” gives us a similar gentle banjo serenade. “My Sweetheart” is a rocked-up instrumental that avoids rock star guitar flash in favor of feel. “Mexico,” with its plain-spoken goodbye sentiments, is probably the best tune along with the angry sounding “Shaked” which opens the set. I’m not going to rave about where these guys are now musically but there’s real potential here. If they take some time, stay together and eat their Wheaties, these guys could carve a serious niche in today’s independent scene.
All Music Guide Mixing the overdriven, alt-country sounds of Son Volt with the heady, metaphorical lyricism of Fables-era R.E.M.,Telegraph is musically and lyrically meaty. Review by Bradley Torreano The nostalgic country rock of June Star stood out from much of the like-minded albums being released around the time of their debut.Where most roots rock had an urgent optimism that made for sing-a-long choruses and mainstream acceptance, June Star had a very different vision of the genre.Taking the Southern gothic imagery of Flannery O’Connor and blending it with the stripped down approach of later period Uncle Tupelo, their debut Songs from an Engineer’s Daughter was a dark reaction to the alternative country scene.
In Music We Trust June Star’s brand of alt-country is as much about the mood as it is the story being told. Hard knock tales of growing up and living life, June Star keeps on chugging on, writing about the ups and downs of life, putting a country spin on it all, and making you feel as if you were there.Through the mid-tempo rock numbers that will have you getting up out of your seat and dancing to the poignant acoustic pieces, you’ll always want June Star to sway you to sleep with its oft-dark, still warm and comforting sound.
Alt.country.nl Telegraph (Sonic Rendezvous) is the second album by alt.countryband, June Star and let me tell you right now: it’s a great record.The band around Andrew Grimm, who writes songs that sound like home. Somtimes it’s like they are sleepdrunk which gives the songs a relaxed atmosphere. However, when they want, June Star delivers energetic playing on songs like, “Felled.” When the first song starts, you assume this will be the next Uncle Tupelo-band, but as the album continues, the sounds shift to The Gourds, and before you know you’d think that Shane MacGowan has made the crossing from Ireland to America. Telegraph is mostly acoustic with a few electric guitars and some beautiful pedal steel guitar by guest musician Eric Heywood. With subtle production and mixing,Telegraph is full of small surprises.
All Music Guide The nostalgic country rock of June Star stood out from much of the likeminded albums being released around the time of their debut.Where most roots rock had an urgent optimism that made for sing-a-long choruses and mainstream acceptance, June Star had a very different vision of the genre.Taking the Southern gothic imagery of Flannery O’Connor and blending it with the stripped down approach of later period Uncle Tupelo, their debut Songs from an Engineer’s Daughter was a dark reaction to the alternative country scene.
Baltimore City Paper One of the most striking songs on the new June Star album Telegraph (Safe House) is “Wedding Girl,” which begins with a desultory strum of an acoustic guitar, sounding both Appalachian and exhausted of hope.That sets the stage for Andrew Grimm’s nasal, gravelly baritone, which claims, “I don’t want to touch the sun anymore/I’m a wedding girl lost in her dress.” It’s disconcerting at first to hear a gruff male voice behind these words, but the vocal’s implacable evenness—as if it were a medium at a séance or a reluctant witness at a trial—soon casts its spell. Grimm wrote the song, and his fragmented impressions suggest a young woman attracted to a suitor (“amber in the coal, brighter than all men”) who betrayed her (“I’m a wedding girl out of her dress”). And the tension between her attraction and his betrayal is reinforced by the push and pull of the swooning pedal-steel guitar and the brittle mandolin. “Wedding Dress” is based on the Katherine Anne Porter short story “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Such a literary inspiration is not unusual for a band that contains three English teachers and is named after the little girl in Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Mandolinist Tom Scanlan and drummer Alan Zepp still teach in Carroll County public schools, and Grimm taught there for seven years before stepping down last fall to devote himself to his music. "As a teacher, I read Huck Finn twice a year every year, and a lot of other really good fiction as well. And that can’t help but instill some literary ambition in your music,” Grimm says. “Every time you read a good line, you want to write something of your own that’s that good.” These days, the most comfortable genre for a songwriter with literary ambition is alternative country, which marries the storytelling impulses of hillbilly music with the rule-bending freedom of ‘60s and ‘70s rock.Telegraph prominently features Scanlan’s mandolin, Grimm’s acoustic guitar and banjo, and the pedal steel of guest Eric Heywood (best known for his work with the like-minded Son Volt and Jayhawks). These Americana arrangements provide the perfect backdrop for Grimm’s fractured tales about telegraph wires and fog-bound roads. “Our first two albums were loud rock ‘n’ roll albums,” Grimm notes. “And after the second one, we wanted to try something different. It took us a long time to figure out we didn’t have to be raging loud all the time. I was listening to a lot of Richard Buckner and thinking he was so powerful with just acoustic instruments and minimal arrangements. I was also listening to a lot of bluegrass on WAMU [88.5 FM] and thought that would be a cool sound to work with. “About the same time,Tom [Scanlan] started sitting in with us, and I got used to hearing our songs with his mandolin,” Grimm continues. “So we brought him into the band, and it just clicked. It sounded so fresh; when you go to hear a rock band, you don’t expect to hear a mandolin.” When June Star played New Year's Eve at Frazier’s, the quartet kicked off the first set with Kitty Wells’ “She’s No Angel” followed by the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes,” and ended the set with Gram Parsons’ “Sin City” followed by the Velvets’ “Waiting for the Man.” In between it played originals that mixed country and punk flavors in varying proportions— sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes hopeful, sometimes bleak. “It’s tough doing original music in the local bars,” Zepp laments. “[It’s] tougher still if you’re doing alternative country. It’s tough to rouse the crowd when you say, ’Here’s another song about death and heartbreak, and, oh, by the way, it’s really slow.” Zepp, 47, was already an English teacher at Westminster High School when he first met Grimm, now 29, who was a student teacher there in 1994.They ended up sharing a house and eventually formed two-fifths of the rock band Factory Horse from 1997 through 1998. During that same time, Grimm also played in a bluegrass trio called Tuscaloosa with Scanlan and Shane Poteete. When Factory Horse broke up acrimoniously, Grimm formed June Star with Zepp and Poteete. That trio released a self-titled debut album in 1998. Poteete moved to North Carolina just before the 2000 album Songs From an Engineer’s Daughter (Hungry for Music), which featured Grimm, Zepp, second guitarist Tim Johnson, and interim bassist J.B. Chenoweth. Tim Bracken soon replaced Chenoweth and Scanlan made it a quintet for the third album,Telegraph, though Johnson’s departure last month made June Star a quartet once again.The new album was released last November on Vermont’s Safe House Records. Bracken has a solo deal with the label and is collaborating with label mate Robert McCreedy (formerly of the Volebeats) on a duo album due this spring. But the band is still going through some growing pains. At times it sounds so much like Son Volt that it’s disconcerting, and too often Grimm settles for the Richard Buckner model of droning, minimalist melodies and disconnected, private-language lyrics. But when Grimm and his band mates get past these poor role models and latch onto a real tune and a real story, they sound like one of the most promising bands in Maryland. That potential is most obvious on “New Jordan,” another track from Telegraph.The song tells the story of a family that has packed up all its belongings and headed out for a new life in a new land.The tune rattles and clatters like an old, overloaded truck in its banjo/mandolin arrangement, and the weariness in Grimm's vocal evokes a journey of “miles and miles scored on our belts, the fog won’t wash away.” And after all those miles, the singer discovers—like so many emigrants, pilgrims, and fortune-seekers before him— that the “new Jordan is same as the old.”
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