Oklahoma City indie rockers
Thirteen Stars follow up the ramshackle Songs from the Musicbox with a considerably more polished, but less appealing, EP. The five songs on
These Places have a superficially pleasant gloss, but a huge part of the charm of
Thirteen Stars' earlier albums was in the rough edges of the performances and the songs' unexpected shifts in mood and melody.
These Places streamlines the songs and polishes the performances, but in the process leaves
Thirteen Stars sounding frustratingly just like any number of small local indie bands whose career high point would be a slot as the opening band when
the Shins or
Interpol come through town. The closing title track fights the overall blandness with the album's best chorus and most assertive performance, but coming from a band that once had the potential to follow
the Starlight Mints as the best Oklahoma band not named
the Flaming Lips,
These Places is simply a disappointment. ~ Stewart Mason