Paint the Stars - DIY Galaxy Painting Kit for Kids & Adults - Perfect for Home Decor, Gifts & Art Projects

Product Description Though they have just released their first album, Castle Lights is creating quite a buzz with their dynamic live show and stellar songwriting abilities. Their music could be described as intriguingly melodic British pop yet unmistakably American rock and roll. Castle Lights has an extraordinary ability to create infectious songs that you will want to listen to over and over again. They just completed their first album, Paint the Stars, which was released in the late fall of 2010. Review Almost the first story that Rocks Off did here was music that had its inception at Red Tree Recording Studio. Since then, the studio has sent us solid gold album after solid gold album, and their latest release is no exception. Meet Castle Lights, formerly Light Parade. Jeremiah Wood began the group as a solo endeavor at the end of 2007, after leaving his previous band Leeland. His plans changed after a chance meeting with Tyler Susuras during a studio session. Wood quickly recognized Susuras' talent, and the two began honing their sound. Aaron Eaves, a veteran bassist from the Texas band The Blinding, joined to add a calming, low-end force to the band. With the full line-up solidified, Castle Lights is quickly gaining recognition for their carefully crafted pop songs with a European flair. Their debut EP, Paint the Stars, is the first look at their efforts. The record is a perfect mixture of Texas and our Britpop friends from across the ocean. The guitar pickings seem bring to mind the Western flavor Stan Ridgeway used to awesome-up New Wave music back in the Wall of Voodoo days. Layered over that solid beginning is an adherence to the emotional spaciness that defines the movers and shakers in the modern-rock mainstream like Muse and Kings of Leon. We hesitate to call an EP epic. After all, what kind of adventure can you have in less than half an hour? But there can be no doubt that the disc is 18 minutes of pure enlightened ecstasy. Launched on the power of the intergalactic pop appeal, a listener is hurtled up up up through space and time to place their hand firmly against the black velvet of the nighttime sky. To listen to Paint the Stars is to see the universe as something not cold and random, but crafted and personal to each viewer. The title track is the true standout on the EP. It's a song that we fully believe has never been played live without a chorus of upraised hands swaying throughout the audience. It just has an amazing, soul-lifting quality. It's a call to a place that music so wants to go and so rarely gets to, namely that of the perfect tone to complete the tri-chord of heart, mind and music. --Houston Press by Jef RounerFrom the outset, the members of Houston s Castle Lights make no bones about the torch they carry for the semi-recent wave of brooding, radio-friendly Britpop bands, and the group s songs reflect the Coldplay-Snow Patrol-Keane-Starsailor-Travis school of pop songwriting. The thing is, Castle Lights songs are every bit as catchy as their better-known counterparts, with plaintive vocals and big walls of guitars that lets the band stand firmly on its own, despite the similarities to influences from across the pond. Many a musician has glommed onto the bombast and style that British musicians often bring to their songs, and on its debut EP Castle Lights seems to have studied exactly what it takes to write similarly catchy tunes while avoiding the style-over-substance trap. Wait For You s repeated I ll wait for you as long as I can / I ll wait for you with my heart in my hand is the kind of stuff that makes teenage poets weep, while Maze Of Love and the more upbeat Bid You Farewell show the band s range. But it s EP closer Paint The Stars that best represents Castle Lights music: smooth vocals and squeaky clean pop. It s tough to argue with a formula this tried-and-true, so why try? Paint The Stars easily ranks among the best releases in Houston this year. Castle Lights plays an acoustic set tonight (Thursday, 12.16.10) at Warehouse Live, as part of the Canned Acoustica food drive benefit concert. --Houston Calling Blog by David Cobb