The grunge genre has always been defined by its angst, using music to drag listeners down into the musicians’ own wallowing. Los Angeles-based band Starling identifies with this grunge label, save for a few exceptions, saying: “[We’re] 2020’s grunge… grunge [for a] Gen Z audience.” Many of their songs host lyrics that call back to grunge’s long, underground history, while referencing a particularly modern type of isolation through themes of social media-based longing and heavy ironicism at times, allowing a way for them to not always take themselves completely seriously. The band self-describes their vibe as “moody but also fun,” yet another twist on grunge’s typical self-seriousness.
Starling’s earliest conception included only two of their current members: Kasha Souter Willett, the main vocalist, songwriter, and backing guitarist, and Grace Rolek, her bassist. Their remaining members, and high school classmates, Erik Johnson and Gitai Vinshtok, joined as official bandmates not too long after. Both assist with the songwriting while Johnson serves as the band’s drummer, sound mixer, and production head and Vinshtok as their lead guitarist and backing vocals. While they had played with the others as backing instrumentals in the past, the group’s dynamic began to shift as the way Willett wanted to create music changed. As she said, “We wanted to release singles and decided to put them together as a concise project before moving onto our next one… it was just time for things to come out.” Thus came the band’s first EP, 2324, packed with straightforward songs lamenting change and missed opportunities throughout the bandmates’ lives. The EP’s sound production remains interesting due to its relative normalcy, only using production outside of the base instrumental tracks in particularly poignant moments, like the dreamy effect on Willett’s voice in “Can it waiT,” mimicking the song’s references to “smudging rituals to feel some control.”
On creating 2324’s enigmatic soundscape, Johnson said, “I just wanted to put a bunch of weird arrangements in these recordings.” “Falling Down a Mystery Hillside” perhaps captures Johnson’s type of arrangements best, instantly throwing you into a melody that feels like it’s been interrupted. There’s little build-up, throwing you into the setting: “Late at night, and we get in a big fight.” With the song’s looping lyrics, this undefined relationship is immediately characterized as dysfunctional. This is Starling’s typical approach; familiarizing you with their lives by putting you right in the middle of a situation. Their hypnotic instrumentals, too, contain consistent chords that ease you into each vignette. The guitar track throughout “Falling Down a Mystery Hillside,” for example, stays almost entirely the same, letting you focus on the lyrics’ repetitive conflict. Likewise, many of Starling’s inspirations are uniquely abstract, trying to capture simple, personal moments—“a screen in my mind, how I don’t like parties, making it happen, sitting in our rooms, breathing,” were some they mentioned to me.
Nostalgia is a very prevalent theme throughout 2324, particularly through the production. For instance, in their song “I Want To,” the vocals are hazy, faded like an old record. Its backing tracks spin out at certain points—halfway through the song a synth beeps discordantly, reminding me of a tangled VHS tape. As if the tape is being rewound, over and over again, the beat and lyrics restart at this point, too. “I Want To” itself talks about someone the singer has lost in their life from a long time ago, still loving them “like we’re kids.” The track is drenched in regret, as the singer is stuck in a constant loop of these memories. It ends with a telling refrain—“And it’s a shame I’m not kissing on your pale blue eyes, oh but I want to.” The nostalgic elements of 2324 often feel less intentional and more of an inevitability. Each band member feels personally connected to this sentimental theme, to the extent that it serves as its own type of inspiration. “[Nostalgia] makes me cry, and that makes me want to play guitar,” Vinshtok said. Johnson, too, noted that “Making any piece of music that has to do with anything at all conceptually is nostalgia. It only ever is nostalgic.”
One of my favorite parts of Starling’s lyricism is the ritualistic feel of much of their writing, which is felt the most on EP’s last song “Fuss.” The bewitching track opens with “rampant water, wager wonder, wither when it’s wained.” The soothing twangs of guitar in the background and intentional alliteration spin a tale for listeners. Moving into the chorus, the singer is constantly reminding the subject of these memories from their past; reminding them “how to feel the pain.” It’s like a spell being woven, entrapping the subject and listeners alike in these moments. When bringing my interpretation up to Willett, she was taken aback but began to lean into this idea. “I’ve never thought this and I don’t think it’s intentional, but I will say I tend to think that any artwork and writing does not come from the actual person. We’re a vessel, but it comes from somewhere else, so maybe you’re getting that.”
2324 doesn’t have just one subject—both in theming and who each song is about, as the topic of each is often deliberately undefinable, often instead addressing full-time periods in the band’s lives. “[The EP was] supposed to be abstract, amateurly,” Johnson told me. Such as with bands like The Cure or The White Stripes, Starling refuses to be trapped within the musical confines of their closest genre match, instead being defined by their carefully crafted lyrics. 2324 isn’t just grunge music, but it doesn’t need to be. Each song feels like a time capsule, and listening to the full EP feels like digging them up and unleashing Starling’s intangible, supernatural energy.
