Hour of The Star / Her Grey Earth

 "Hour of the Star formed out of the ashes of the vegan, straight edge band Her Grey Earth. But unlike Her Grey Earth, Hour of the Star was built on the emo icons that came before them. Influenced by bands such as Indian Summer, Moss Icon, Current, Navio Forge, Native Nod and many others, the boys of Hour of the Star took that sound and feel and added their own spin to it. The screamo feel with a pop edge put Hour of the Star on the maps, a small dot only, but on the maps none the less. The band was short lived as Steve and Jaime opted to head off for greener pastures. Bryan, Jeff and Josh decided to call it quits with Bryan and Jeff going off to form a band with members of You and I/Instill and Unaswered. The Sebastian Coe never recaptured the same emotion and friendship that Hour of the Star did…

RIP

Love,
Bryan, Jeff, Josh, Jaime and Steve " 

- LastFM

I couldn't have said it better myself. I found this band while searching through discogs looking for new music, I ended up finding "The Clocks" which I haven't been able to listen to as of yet but the album art had me sold so I bought the vinyl anyway so I'm looking forward to that. Hour of The Star is a melodic emo blend which I just love every minute of, I am really tempted to say they remind me of a mellow version of IHateMyself but anyone who even remotely knows music will say that is absolutely not the case, but I don't know, it made sense in my head.

This band had two releases which was a self titled 7" and a split with the band "Her Grey Earth" which they themselves only released a split and a demo that featured songs they were on the split so basically only a handful of songs which is why I'm labeling this post as a combo discography of both Hour of The Star and Her Grey Earth. 

Hour of The Star - Hour of The Star (1997)

1. Intro

2. Root beer & Running Shoes

3. St. Anthony

4. Steeplchase

Hour of The Star / Her Grey Earth  (1997)

1. Hour of The Star - Postmark

2. Hour of The Star - Rickard

3. Hour of The Star - Star With a Thousand Pointed Ray

4. Hour of The Star - Last Dance

5. Her Grey Earth - As Darkness Fall

6. Her Grey Earth - Consume

7. Her Grey Earth - Deathcamp

Veronica Lake

FFO: Shoegaze, Lo-fi

Veronica Lake was a pop band formed in 1990 in Ann Arbor Michigan. The band consisted of Tim Sendra as well as Christopher Chip Porter and R. Scott Kelley previously of down MF. Veronica Lake released "The Man Who Was Not With It E.P" in 1990 on Bus Stop and two 7"s- "When You Smile/Insecure Baby" in 1992 on spinART and "Threnody/In the Clouds" in 1993 on Audrey's Diary. They appeared on several twee and indie comps including Simple Machine's "Working Holiday!: May" 7". An insert for their first 7" describes them as, "dedicated to flexidiscs, exclamation marks, and hopelessly derivative, instantly forgettable songs".

-Taken from Last.Fm

As said above most of these songs were taken from 7" records on labels that are now very much defunct (RIP) but their music will live on; That being said these recordings are low quality with pops crackles and all included. I wouldn't want it any other way.

An interesting thing I found when going through these files was their split with Crayon that was released on Cher Doll Records which has a slight connection to another band featured on this site which was Gaze. Gaze's "So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad) EP covers Crayon's song "Pedal", don't you love making connections?

I'm including the songs from all splits/ singles and EP released from 1992-1993, each of these releases had their release name and album art but for neatness I found a generic album art and id3 tagged that so they all share they same art as well as album name.

as of the time post (8/21/19) Veronica Lake had reunited once in 2015 playing PopFest in NYC, with their reunion came a compilation CDr that was titled "Ballad Of The Band" and features three songs not heard on any previous releases, this was being sold directly through the band in person so I feel it isn't right to share something currently being sold, especially by a band without a label. Veronica Lake makes infrequent posts on Facebook so they might be active once again but I wouldn't put money on it.

Favorite Track : This Is My World (You Can Have It), From the get go this song is interesting as it starts with an excerpt from a Steve Martin SNL skit so bonus points there, when the song starts it's what you'd expect from a 90's shoegaze band, soft voices and guitar with fuzzy guitar effects and somber whistling to follow, good song to sit in your dark room under the covers and think of better times to.

Veronica Lake (1992 - 1993)

1. Daisy Kiss

2. Emma Maybe

3. In The Clouds

4. Insecure Baby

5. Saints Above

6. See Me When You Are 16

7. Sleepyhouse

10. This Is My World (You Can Have It)

11. Threnody

12. When You Smile