One Night Falls by Tagging Satellites

Then there's Marvel's voice -- as wispy and elusive as Hope Sandoval's but possessing some of Kendra Smith's wearied mystique -- which sweeps alongside the music and delicately wraps itself around the notes.

No, the members of Tagging Satellites aren't looking down at their feet, detached and discontent, they're staring up at the sky, eyes wide open and filled with wonder.

Star-gazers?

While there's not much variation in the 10 tracks on "One Night Falls," that's not really a criticism; subtle shifts in tone keep the album rolling along, avoiding redundancy.

"deHavilland Comet" twinkles to life with delicate, crystalline guitar notes before jumping into power-pop chords and swooping strings. Marvel's voice makes the transformation, too, switching from angelic to spectral.

"Memory Wire" barely makes it out of first gear, but the pretty ambient drone and Cranes-styled singing is hypnotic and lovely.

The following "A Better Way" finds Tagging Satellites at its most symphonic and sculptural. While the instrumental areas are swollen with crashing and pureed sound, the vocal sections are a study in crafted subtlety and restraint.

"Red Fence" sounds like Mazzy Star with a string section. The single instrumental, "Unknown," shows the band's epic rock side, and the closer, "Starfire 13," is the perfect track to send you into smiling slumber.

- Scott D. Lewis, The Oregonian

Dreamy Female Pop Confessions: It's often misleading to judge an album by it's cover, but in Tagging Satellites' case it's well worth it. From first glance at the handmade artwork, you are faced with a black and gray nightscape with a hand-cut gate forcing you to question whether you are even welcome. Open it up and find one of many unique photos to come with the airbrushed inlay.

On their third full-length release, songstress Zera Marvel shows her worth as a front-woman crafting her elegant P.J. Harvey cum Kristin Hersh croon. With the assistance of Graig Markel (ex-New Sweet Breath) to help in the creation of the music, One Night Falls takes on the grace of the spookier Cranes songs.

Haunting secrets like "I miss everyone I have kissed" from "Memory Wire" complete with cello accompaniment really garner the album repeat visits. "DeHavilland Comet," and "Valentino" are certainly the strongest tracks on the album with their well crafted, almost pop appeal to them. "A Better Way" brings the tempo back up a touch with the neatly plucked acoustic leading the way. With the grace of Zera's voice and the rest of the band's ability to seemingly appear when needed, you'll find yourself with the perfect soundtrack to a fading horizon.

Tagging Satellites do a wonderful job combining Seattle's dreariness into the influences of the British shoegazing pioneers.

- Outburn Magazine, Skippy Longstocking

Tagging Satellites serve up their version of new American Gothic, an odd mixture of dreamy rock, poppy sensibility, alt-country psychedelia, and a hint of creepiness. The somber lyrics of singer Zera Marvel are delivered in a style somewhere between a more medicated, less bitchy Courtney Love and a less brooding Kendra Smith.

The music is reminiscent of David Roback, who with Smith played as Opal, and later went on to back Hope Sandoval in the now dormant Mazzy Star.

There are symphonic touches in the production of "deHavilland Comet", "Memory Wire", "Sky", and "Starfire 13", smoothing out the sleep induced dopamine chronicles.

- David Parish, Slug Magazine

For quite some time, pop fans have been sleeping with a night-light on, or the hallway lamp left burning and a door left cracked open. With sunshiny melodies dominating nearly every facet of the underground pop world, from power pop to jangle and twee to psychedelic and the new Merseybeats, there's nary a shadow, let alone a pool of darkness, in which semi-vampiric types can creep away from the rays of the sun.

Whatever happened to the days of tarantula pop and the Sisters' videos on MTV? Has caked-on eyeliner and black lipstick, Hot Topics and the rise of baby goths schooled by Marilyn Manson killed off all hope of respectable darkness? Not quite yet, they haven't.

While Tagging Satellites isn't quite as wrapped up in the world of moon shadows, smoky night air and the combination of deliberate back-beats and metallic guitars that are associated with goth bands, the Seattle outfit is more than just a few shades darker than most of its pop brethren. Droning guitars, minor-key melodies, wraith-like keyboards and the deadpan delivery of singer Zera Marvel give One Night Falls many of the trappings of classic goth's gossamer strains, but, then again, there's a lot, lot more melody than you're going to hear on the play list of any respectable undead DJ.

So what exactly is going on with the Satellites? It's pop that's for sure. Both the band's deep-sea melodies and an ever-so-slightly playful demeanor keep the band from sounding as grimly serious as the goth set. Whether the band lets a fragile guitar figure unwind over sleepy bass, keys and vocals ("Memory Wire") or lets Marvel's slightly grim vocals eclipse its most pop arrangement ("Valentino"), there are still enough melodies entangled in the murk of One Night Falls to appease pop fans who aren't scared away by the dirge-like tempos and sometimes creepy orchestration.

No, pop doesn't bury its head in the sand and hide as soon as the sun goes down - Tagging Satellites guarantees that with an album that's a much needed change of pace from the sunny-side-up feeling so prevalent in modern pop.

-Aversion.com

When the definitive book about the Seattle music scene is written, there's going to have to be a full chapter devoted to the work of ultra prolific performer/composer/producer Graig Markel and his many musical endeavors. Tagging Satellites is just one of them, and with "One Night Falls", remains one of his most innovative and inspired. The ten-track disc's fusion of jangly power pop and dark ambient soundscapes sewn together by the angelic vocals of Zera Marvel recalls Hole, PJ Harvey, and Radiohead, shaken, stirred, and poured into Phil Spector's martini glass.

-Stuart Green, Exclaim Magazine

Tagging Satellites' third album will instantly transport you back to the days when shoe-gazer bands and smart but raw indie pop ruled the "alternative" music landscape - back when "Goth" wasn't a dirty word.

"One Night Falls" is dark in tone and foreboding in nature, but never takes itself seriously enough to be mistaken for, say Sisters Of Mercy, and the guitars are a bit on the poppy side to be mistaken for Bauhaus.

The album's strongest point is how refreshingly un-ironic the music is. It seems like these days that irony - despite what some pundits have said, is alive and well in this post - September 11th world, a lot of nudge-nudge, wink-wink cynicism.

Tagging Satellites forego all that and just play the music that they want. The moody "DeHavilland Comet" sounds like a lost, Irish song, while "Red Fence" could teach Hope Sandoval a few things about the proper use of a soaring string section. A good soundtrack for those introspective moments.

-CMJ

For more information:

https://www.recoverysounds.com/ts

https://www.zeramarvel.com

https://www.graigmarkel.com

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