'Tied to a Star' is a surprisingly laid back album from Dinosaur Jr frontman J Mascis. After a bitter break-up Mascis reconciled with his original Dinosaur Jr. bandmates Lou Barlow and Murph in the latter half of the last decade. Since then they have pounding out growling, fuzzy rock at levels equal to (if not exceeding) their heyday in the 80s and 90s. It might have been expected that this revival would has filtered through to Mascis’s latest solo record. Instead he seems to have taken the summer to heart with a mellow and generally acoustic set of chilled out songs. This is not to say that anyone could mistake these pieces as coming from anyone other than Mascis. His trademark vocals still range from high-pitched crooning to a low-pitched hard-to-decipher drawl. And while he may have relaxed a bit, there is enough feedback and distortion on his guitar lines to remind you that this man laid down the template for grunge before Nirvana and everyone else decided it captured their anger pretty well. Maybe Mascis is saving his full on noise for Dinosaur Jr’s new material. Maybe he just wanted a change of pace. Whatever the reason, 'Tied to a Star' is a welcome addition