Tracks:
Spies
In Parallel
Gossamer Days
Life until Now
All Lovers Are Blind
Amherst Incident
16 RPM
Snow Day
Oh, The Places You'll go
Clare Grogan's Scar

Has a drunken slur to it which contrasts nicely with the pristine instrumentation: guitars chime with infinity, cymbals crash with luscious echoes and keys puncture the melodies beautifully; a finely constructed album .- under the radar

milk-coated with warmed, plinking keyboard patterns and texturizing, rising guitars, keeping everything ... very ... dreamy. - stereogum
 
Enamored of refracted sunlight and beams through leafy trees; it’s careful, considered, graceful, and in love with the feel of warmth on eyelids. In addition to Gautreau’s hushed vocals — he continues the line from Nick Drake to the Clientele — Gossamer Days features a lot of softly-tumbling guitar lines and slow-motion moments that allow for everything to unfold at its own speed. Pretty damn dreamy throughout; with its knowing solitude and broadly romantic lyrics, it features the sort of sound you’d imagine as the score to your fantasy autumn relationship with a pretty college professor. “We talked about Camus, we listened to Burt Jansch…the collars on our sweaters got in the way of our kissing.” — Detour

A soothing, celestial sound that makes full use of a hushed vocal, shimmery guitars, an ethereal aesthetic and a near-constant quest for quiet contemplation. For all Crushed Stars’ sonic indulgence, there’s a host of sensual delights to focus in on when it comes to achieving that zen-like gaze. Wishing upon these Stars is wholly encouraged - BLURT

Glossy pop music. Deliberately paced tempos are set by finger-picked guitar patterns augmented by sustained keyboard chords, and Gautreau calmly and indistinctly intones his lyrics within the mix. It’s all dreamy and gauzy and vague, music meant to create (or accompany) a sleepy mood rather than to listen to carefully, like the earnest mumbling of Michael Stipe in early R.E.M. if the band were being produced by an ambient-minded Brian Eno - all music guide

The aptly named Crushed Stars are the indie pop project of Todd Gautreau and in the past, his music has been very, very quiet. While the ten songs on Gossamer Days could hardly be described as such, they do possess a richness that he had only hinted at previously. That might be in part thanks to the production of Stuart Sikes, who also worked with Cat Power on The Greatest, but it is also reflected in Gautreau’s songs, which manage to carefully walk the line between bleak and beautiful. There are hints of Red House Painters and the Clientele, but they are closest in spirit to nearly forgotten Sarah Records band Brighter, who also produced this kind of wonderful melancholy. When it comes to quiet indie pop, Gossamer Days is pretty much as good as it gets - exclaim

a facilitating warmth, one that easily brings you back to soft and tender moments that are long past.

A liquid reverb ripples off of Todd Gautreau’s vocals, lapping against the quietly seductive instrumentation. Yes... quietly seductive... even when you turn the volume up on Crushed stars you’re simply moving closer to a purring cat. This is the kind of music that relaxes me, I don’t even have to understand the lyrics, they could be Portuguese for all it matters... it’s the vibe borne out of the various elements that makes this music magical. - sixeyes

can very much be likened to a dark star-scattered sky; beautiful, melancholic and awe-inspiring.

Filled with lush, dreamy songs, “Gossamer Days” is its own little galaxy, ready to be explored,

star by star - i am the crime

one of the most lush and expansively beautiful albums I’ve ever had the pleasure of day-dreaming to. I’m almost at a loss for words, or maybe I just can’t think of words that are as beautiful as the music I want to describe them with.- it covers the hillsides

Fans of Air and the Clientele will enjoy Crushed Stars’ third album, Gossamer Days, whose tunes play like a lullaby, inviting — or perhaps entrancing –– the listener into an alternate dream world in which beauty is personified through tender, elegant music. Each song masterfully creates an emotional journey, as in “In Parallel,” or the instrumental “Snow Day,” where the delicate keyboards echo the first flakes of winter snow, transporting the listener to the white landscape in songwriter Todd Gautreau’s mind. - music connection

Crushed Stars’ reverb-heavy vocal patterns and liquid-like guitar/organ melodies make for the perfect late night bedroom-pop listen...radiates in purity, basking in its calm nature. Relaxing and rejuvenating, Gossamer Days will slip into your soul with ease, breaking down that which is bad and replacing it with something a little bit better. -fensepost

a sweet and fragile bit of bedroom pop…though the burning soul flickering away at the center of these starlit cuts is obvious enough. On this, his Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, Whiter Stripes, Modest Mouse) produced third album, Gautreau prefers to present the bare embers of his heart…as if any inferno of thought and emotion would be too much for the delicate silky strands of guitar and voice to handle. The result is an album of uncomplicated beauty. Glossy yet downtrodden, precious yet ultimately headstrong; Gossamer Days is a strikingly honest piece of music in the vein of Red House Painters and Kings of Convenience. – baeblemusic

Crushed Stars = Grizzly Bear + Red House Painters + Calla 

“Closing my eyes, sleeping away, these gossamer days:” The soft tones and guitar chords of the album’s namesake song create an image of a wet, glistening, rainy day. You can hear the pitter-patter of rain drops emanate from piano keys and see the image of a cold fall season as she brings forth a soft, falling snow: a sparkling, twinkling scene trapping musicians and lovers indoors. This is the scenery from “Snowy Day,” an instrumental ode to dreary weather. Not weather necessarily freezing or causing apathy, but slowing the hours—perhaps even the mood and musical crafting of Todd Gautreau. Gautreau’s vocals are often muffled but deep, like Mark Kozeleck or Marc Lanegan. Gatrueau’s guitar style is also like Lanegan’s—expertly sounding like lap steel and giving dreamy electronic numbers a folk show; also similar to the popular indie-dreamer Sam Beam (Iron & Wine). Crushed Stars give you another soft, romantic album for those days when you just want to gaze out a window. – slug

can very much be likened to a dark star-scattered sky; beautiful, melancholic and awe-inspiring.Filled with lush, dreamy songs, “Gossamer Days” is its own little galaxy, ready to be explored, star by star. – rocksellout

This is one of the best records so far this year, and definitely leaves me wanting to check out its predecessor Obsolescence. It’s a perfect record for the end of winter. It’s the little things here and there, like the fact that the guitar lick in “Amherst Incident” is insanely catchy and that the last track is called “Clare Grogan’s Scar.” - heaven is above your head

easily one of my favorite albums of the young new year. Slow and sad in ways that recall more

than a few of my other favorite albums, it’s an introspective soon-to-be classic that’s perfect

for these long winter nights - rawkblog

Gautreau continues to hone his brand of polite indie-rock, recording with Stuart Sikes (Cat Power). It’s the sort of album that starts in the background of a relaxing day, and seeps through the cracks of scattered attentions, attaching itself with careful guitar hooks and an absolutely pleasant mood. This album is a contradiction: dense and delicate, minimal and complicated, atmospheric and striking; It bends the singer-songwriter genre with spatial colorings and patient unraveling.

Minimal percussion and strings compositions are showcased in the album’s sixth track, “Amherst Incident,” where they support Gautreau’s velveteen vocals. Taylor Reed delicately joins in during the chorus, paralleling the male-female juxtaposition on Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s “The Letting Go,” but unlike the Bonnie record, Reed avoids getting into the eyelid-dropping lulls that plague its musical cousin. Gautreau’s words have a lamenting immediacy. He sings like a man of experience, delicately whispering ideas not in hope of their vicarious animation, they but as a means to illuminate a world of previous senselessness..”Gautreau’s voice is the most striking part of Crushed Stars. The guitar work subtly plays up his rich voice. In the album opener, Gautreau’s voice sounds like a downtrodden Morrissey on a lazy day off, timidly bellowing personal thoughts through a tunnel of reverb.

In a display of diversity, the album does have its ambient moment in “Snow Day,” providing a Brian Eno-influenced instrumental track. A beautiful Rhodes piano plays a scattered melody over a pulsing traditional piano. Layers of heavy reverb and guitar ambience flow in and out toward the end of the song, leaving behind visions of cascading white puffs trickling down from the heavens.

In a tired genre of singer-songwriter, Crushed Stars manages to fins its own niche, using elements of ambience, carefully delivered vocals, and thoughtful lyrics. Gossamer Days is one of the budding year’s highlights and is something to look out for.

RIYL: Nick Drake, The Sea and Cake A | Glen Elkins -- playback stl