Starcleaner Reunion's 'Umbrella' Is a Garage-Built Debut With the Reach of a Planetarium
The Sonic Breakdown
Starcleaner Reunion take their name from a 1979 Cooper Edens picture book, which tells you most of what you need to know about their relationship to whimsy: they are completely sincere about it. The four of them — Jo Roman on vocals and tambourine, Pat Drummond and Neil Torman on guitars, Adam Kenter on bass — grew up together in Springfield, New Jersey, and recorded this debut over the summer of 2025 in Kenter’s garage studio. Ruben Radlauer mixed it and layered in extra orchestration. That’s the whole apparatus. It sounds like a much more expensive record.
The Production & Mix
The Low-End: Kenter’s bass is the record’s chassis — round, unhurried, and mixed far enough forward that it carries melody rather than just outlining chords. On “Docking In Oslo” it does the work a lead vocal usually does.
The Spatial Dynamics: Radlauer’s mix is the quiet triumph here. Two guitars could easily have turned to mud in a garage; instead Drummond and Torman are parked at opposite edges of the stereo field, leaving a wide corridor down the middle for Roman’s voice and Radlauer’s added strings. There’s genuine air in these songs — a sense of ceiling height that a room like that shouldn’t have been able to give them.
Standout Performance
Jo Roman, who sings the way a good narrator reads: warm, deadpan, never oversold. “Never Odd or Even” and “Eating the Alphabet” both hinge on her refusal to push, and the restraint makes the melodies land harder.
Why It’s Certified
The Line of Best Fit gave it a 7, writing that it “doesn’t take away one bit from the joy and splendour of this delightfully enjoyable debut” — the band “aren’t shooting for the moon, but end up among the stars anyway.” Stereogum called it “a masterful debut album.” Both are right, and the pleasure of “Headlamp Hiker” and “Tea Drops Park” is that nobody involved seems to be auditioning for anything. They made the record they wanted in a garage with their oldest friends, and the confidence is audible in every bar.