The third album from duo Matthew Doty (guitar/bass/synth) and Phil Stancil (vocals/guitar/bass), Heavenly Bodies is the first to feature drummer Paul Doyle as a full-fledged collaborator and the thrilling expansion of a sound begun on 2013’s Fornication. For that album, Midnight Faces’ debut, Stancil brought vocals to Doty’s existing songs; 2014’s The Fire Is Gone saw a more thorough partnership emerge between the two musicians, and praise for the record flowed from outlets including SPIN, Entertainment Weekly, VICE, and Nylon. And now, Midnight Faces returns with a more evocative sound than ever. From the widescreen guitars of opener “Blue Haze,” to the delectable electronic textures of “Space Boy,” to the twilight rush of “Feeling Like a Stranger,” the songs of Heavenly Bodies feel like breath in the lungs, ready to carry you forward wherever you want to go.
Doty and Stancil met in Grand Rapids, MI, though both were initially involved in separate projects. Doty had gained attention in the early 2000s with his band Saxon Shore, co-founded with his friend Josh Tillman, now better known as Father John Misty. Later, he’d catch Stancil singing during a gig at a bar. When they began playing together, Stancil says, it was a smooth transition, if a bit outside of his comfort zone. Stancil’s voice, rich and warm, sounds lifted from the golden age of ’70s and early ’80s classic rock, while Doty’s compositions tended toward a sound more reminiscent of dream-pop, shoegaze, and post-punk’s skittering energy. “I’d never written music from that standpoint,” Stancil explains, “and stylistically it was different, but it all came together pretty quickly for us.”
The synchronicity shows: Stancil’s voice lends weight to Doty’s emotive, atmospheric songs, while Doty’s precise, layered songwriting lets Stancil’s vocals float to the top of the mix, driving these indie-minded tracks with the directness of strongly melodic, instantly memorable classic rock. Together, with Doyle’s steady percussion, the songs of Heavenly Bodies take on a yearning, nostalgic—but never despairing—quality. It’s as if you’d been humming them to yourself in a montage of your memories, only realizing it when the song ends. Luckily, you can start over again with Heavenly Bodies whenever the moment takes you, which, with a band as graceful and immediate as Midnight Faces, it’s sure to do over and over again.
Doty and Stancil met in Grand Rapids, MI, though both were initially involved in separate projects. Doty had gained attention in the early 2000s with his band Saxon Shore, co-founded with his friend Josh Tillman, now better known as Father John Misty. Later, he’d catch Stancil singing during a gig at a bar. When they began playing together, Stancil says, it was a smooth transition, if a bit outside of his comfort zone. Stancil’s voice, rich and warm, sounds lifted from the golden age of ’70s and early ’80s classic rock, while Doty’s compositions tended toward a sound more reminiscent of dream-pop, shoegaze, and post-punk’s skittering energy. “I’d never written music from that standpoint,” Stancil explains, “and stylistically it was different, but it all came together pretty quickly for us.”
The synchronicity shows: Stancil’s voice lends weight to Doty’s emotive, atmospheric songs, while Doty’s precise, layered songwriting lets Stancil’s vocals float to the top of the mix, driving these indie-minded tracks with the directness of strongly melodic, instantly memorable classic rock. Together, with Doyle’s steady percussion, the songs of Heavenly Bodies take on a yearning, nostalgic—but never despairing—quality. It’s as if you’d been humming them to yourself in a montage of your memories, only realizing it when the song ends. Luckily, you can start over again with Heavenly Bodies whenever the moment takes you, which, with a band as graceful and immediate as Midnight Faces, it’s sure to do over and over again.
