Guitarist/songwriter Ted Nesseth is abundantly gifted. He and his band, the Heavenly States (formerly known as Fluke Starbucker and thankfully newly renamed), manage the difficult feat of wedding angry intensity to that of delicately finessed grace on this amazing debut. This trio of displaced musicians (from Minnesota, Texas, and New York, respectively) now residing in the Bay Area exhibits an uncanny ability to create strange yet lovely pop creations, lush and unpredictable and often with a hard guitar edge.
Joining Nesseth is brother/sister team, Jeremy and Genevieve Gagon. Their self-titled album (coming on the heels of a split single release with Coldplay) is an unexpected surprise, an eclectic delight. The Heavenly States delivers 14 songs that really challenge a listener due to the sheer enormity of musical range covered.
After the few seconds of "What's the Intro Morning Glory?", the CD opens strong with the powerful "American Borders". Hard guitars mix with delicate accents in this energetic and vitriolic dismissal of a nation summed up in the line: "Heaven for a few, the rest scarred". This is a great arrangement, and played to perfection.
Similarly, "Monster" mixes hard and soft into a marvelous amalgam of a song that typifies the very special style that makes The Heavenly States an instant classic.
"The Story Of" builds on a violin riff into a deceptively upbeat song that trades on the great vocal harmonies between Ted and Genevieve and cynically serves up a chorus that states: "Hey, hey / Everybody's gonna die today". Nesseth likes wordplay, and often provides eclectic lyrics that may sound great, but ultimately serve to confound: "Wake up your knight and check your mate / Perpendicular to hibernation / Axiological debate".
The Heavenly States show their mastery of the soft ballad with "My Friends". This haunting melody about friends who say you're right and you're wrong, but have yet to change your mind, contains more odd and intriguing references: "Pile up the dirt that you can take / The voices of sparrows, the weakening arrow, the sister number 8".
One of Nesseth's gifts is an ability to write wonderful yet unpredictable songs. While great guitar work dominates "Beyond the Great Beyond", the song is complex in structure, offering soft moments amid what oft sounds like a musical celebration of marital love. Once again, he also has a way with unexpected phrases: "I wanna punch you in my face / And we're drowning in our faith / I never wanted it that way / But my heart has inked my weight". "Cumulous to Nebulous" opens with an almost trance-like musical ramble (there are no vocals until over two and a half minutes into the song). Here we see the expertise of producer/engineer Jeff Saltzman, who manages to bring a dreamy, loose, Elephant-6 feel to the instrumentals.
Similarly, on "Empire", the sound is a grand sonic wash that plods forward slowly, using backward tape loops for a psychedelic interlude amid a wondrous epic of a song (at nearly seven minutes long).
"Carwash" is a complete change of pace. Here, the Heavenly States let Genevieve loose on the electronic keyboard and you get something that sounds upbeat and totally 1980s, complete with nonsense ladadas. It's short, it's catchy, and it's fun! Another song that seems a companion piece to that one would have to be the fast-paced "New Parade", featuring more superb violin from Genevieve.
"Senseless Beauty" is a short rocker that offers up this insightful information: "The queen she will reign / And the rain just makes me wet / And the wet is so sexual / The sex just complicates it".
"Timeless Melody" explores vocal harmonies that are sustained throughout, while "Gin and Tonic" gives Genevieve the lead vocals on an infectious tune so Ted can show off his guitar expertise. Again, these complex songs, as surprising as they are, make their way into your sub-conscious with repeated listens. Nesseth really knows how to hook listeners.
The solemn "Hangar" closes the CD on a quietly graceful note, Nesseth's impassioned vocals at once familiar and thoughtful: "I used to be stronger, but you took that from me, I fear / If I think any harder, the thought might come to me / And that still frightens me". There's also a small instumental outro that frames these songs perfectly.
Nesseth and the Gagons have outdone themselves with this full-length debut. Every song is interesting, and I urge you to discover how much so. Some CDs have a hard time filling a half hour with decent music; The Heavenly States manages to occupy over fifty-three minutes with music that goes beyond the pale, a multi-dimensional pop musical treat that is as welcome as it is unexpected, and destined to be considered an underground classic.
— 28 August 2003
