When people start to try to describe Delicate
Steve, people generally start speaking in roundabout terms that, more often
than not, create a stronger visual than capture a sound. A good example comes
from Chuck Klosterman, music journalist and author of several books including
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. In a publicity email for Delicate Steve’s first
album Wondervisions, he goes on to say “Like a hydro-electric Mothra rising
from the ashes of an African village burned to the ground by post-rock
minotaurs.”
What’s even stranger than the descriptions Delicate Steve tends to
yield is the truth in them. Delicate Steve is a New York based psychedelic
instrumental pop band lead by guitarist Steve Marion, the band’s namesake, and
what they lack in vocals, they more than make up for in infectious hooks and
soaring melodies. The guitar is the strong center piece, and often sticks out
so strongly it does indeed invoke thoughts of some great beast looming over the
rest of the track.
With the band’s sophomore effort Positive Force, the catchy
hooks take a bit of a back seat to stronger imagery and a more traditional
psychedelia tone. The result is an album that stands as a whole better than in
parts, while Wondervisions dabbled in interludes between tracks, they played
off like short standalone tracks.
In Positive Force the interludes play a much
stronger role in transitioning from song to song, creating a seamless sound
from track 1 to track 11. As a great fan of the band’s first effort, it’s hard
not to notice the stark changes in sound from their first effort, so when the
unavoidable question arises of whether it’s better than the first, I find
myself struggling with a definitive answer. Instead take this, Delicate Steve
earned its national success through creating music that’s difficult, and for
some, impossible to describe in words, and in Positive Force succeed in the
same goal, without treading the same ground Wondervisions walked. Combined with
the strength of the longer tracks, that’s more than enough to be a great
record, regardless of which is better.