Stars Hollow – In the Flower Bed | EP Review
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Acrobat Unstable Records
Emo has come a long way in the three years since Stars Hollow's last release. Whatever phase of emo we’re in these days—5th wave, post-emo, whatever—Stars Hollow is back for more existential jams and tasty riffs with their third EP, In the Flower Bed.
In general, the genre we’ve come to sometimes ironically call “emo” has come a long way since this photo.
All but two of the bands featured in this photo have largely faded into the ether, for some reasons worse than others. That speaks volumes about the volatile nature of this genre as a whole. After their first full-length LP in 2021, the future of Stars Hollow was up in the air. Too fresh off a global pandemic to properly tour, the trio spent the intervening years working on their careers, pursuing higher education, and discovering themselves. Letting their body of work speak for itself, the band reformed three years later, ready to take another swing at it. Leaning back on the short form of their earlier releases, the group has reemerged with a collection of songs that pick right back up where they left off.
From the introductory first track, the Iowa-based trio kicks off the EP as if they never left, jumping right back into the exact type of morbid lyricism we've come to love from the band. Continuing the grotesquely dark themes found in the rest of the Stars Hollow discography, vocalist Tyler Stodghill beckons, “I’m laying out / the clothes I’ll be buried in.” The EP’s minute-long commencement sets the stage for the themes of rejuvenation found throughout the following four tracks.
If I were to boil Stars Hollow down to just a few things, it'd be 1) twinkly-ass emo riffs, 2) a penchant for the above-mentioned dark lyricism, and 3) punctual tracks. The band’s latest EP features five songs, only one of which is over two and a half minutes. This is something that I love from music in general, no matter the artist. My internet-fried Gen Z brain can’t withstand tracks longer than four minutes, and Stars Hollow almost always deliver on this front. With In The Flower Bed, the band manages to pack meaningful lyrics and crowd-swirling riffs into two-minute windows that keep everything feeling effective, emotive, and impactful.
Despite its 10-minute run time, the band is able to get across their message loud and clear. Crafted as a concept EP about the complicated relationship we hold with our past selves, the tacks seem to swap back and forth between Stoghill’s “who I was back then” and himself in present day. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it’s difficult not to be frustrated with your past self when looking back and all the mistakes are in plain sight. This EP challenges that notion by shifting it into a positive one. Rather than throwing out who he once was, Stoghill is burying it out back and watching it grow.
The band also delivers on their signature twinkly emo sound throughout the EP. For example, track two, “Thorns,” starts with a bouncy intro akin to what we hear on their 2019 single, “Tadpole.” It’s patently Stars Hollow and a warm way to welcome fans back into the band’s world.
Twinkle shredding is all well and good, but that’s also not all we find on the EP. Track four, ”Sickening,” finds the band at their heaviest since their debut EP, I’m Really Not That Upset About It. On this song, Stars Hollow enters their Sempiternal era, ending the track on a breakdown paired with a glitched-out scream that feels very 2013 metalcore in the best way. The track also features some of the darkest lyricism on an already dread-filled EP, with Stodghill at one point shouting, “It hurts to not tell you / I want to crack my fucking skull / on pavement.” The group follows up on that heaviness with one of their softest tracks ever, in the form of their closing title track, “In the Flower Bed.” This juxtaposition makes for a quaint ending to the release that also recounts the overall themes of the EP.
In the Flower Bed places the listener out in the garden, with many of the tracks about burying what once was yet still valuing that person, place, or time in the past for what they contributed. Throughout these five songs, there are various times where Stodghill mentions killing who he was back then, a sentiment listeners are encouraged to take as literally or figuratively as they want. However, the album lands softly in the end, wrapping up with the line, “sinking slowly / never lonely / in the flower bed.”
Despite its sometimes graphic lyricism, In The Flower Bed fosters a space of growth, optimism, and reconciliation. Just because something is emo doesn’t mean it has to be hopeless. As the band walks us through these anguished sentiments, brutal lyrics, and knotty riffs, this EP is ultimately about burying your past self to forge a better future. Sometimes, you have to work through the dark stuff to reach the fresh start that’s waiting on the other side.
The final track ends fittingly with a soft callback to the band's 2018 EP, Happy Again. Echoes of the band’s older lyrics float around the listener, with some distant, younger version of Stodghill singing, “I’m the not same / I’ll be happy again.” For just a moment, these two selves exist simultaneously, briefly acknowledging one another before the song fades to black, leaving us in the flower bed, present day, with nothing but boundless options before us.
Brandon Cortez is a writer/musician residing in El Paso, Texas, with his girlfriend and two cats. When not playing in shitty local emo bands, you can find him grinding Elden Ring on his second cup of cold brew. Find him on Twitter @numetalrev.
