The journey of Jason Martin's recording career as frontman and sole constant member of Starflyer 59, which recently celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the self-titled debut widely known as Silver (which bowed in March of 1994), is the type of career that the phrase "quiet legend" was created for. Through 17 full-length albums, a seemingly endless revolving door of supporting musicians, and a variety of life stages -- from the pre-marriage shoegaze drone of a 21-year-old, to the mid-30s post-peak frustrations stemming from the lack of success and reality of family mid-life, and now to the advanced stages of owning a business and having raised children old enough to not only be his backing band, but have their own record contract -- Jason Martin has never stopped, really never even slowed, making music that is authentically him.

And, quite honestly, in this writer's opinion, there was quite a lengthy period after 2005's brilliant and heartbreaking Talking Voice vs Singing Voice where Starflyer's output became less consistently special, often feeling uninspired and so lyrically opaque as to be easily forgotten - until a 2021 label switch to Velvet Blue brought Vanity, LP number 16, and a refreshed synth-heavy sound that put Jason Martin back at the forefront of thoughtful older-guy baritone indie rock. In fact, lead single "Life in Bed" even had a bit of fuzz to it, a sound that the old school 90s Starflyer crowd was thrilled to hear; "now if only we could get a little more of that old unmistakable Starflyer 59 noise," we said, knowing we probably wouldn't. Enter 2024's Lust for Gold, a spectacular and emotionally wrenching album that stacks all of the noise fans of a certain age could ever dream of and burrows painfully deep, both musically and lyrically, into the emotions of nostalgia and reflection.

The release of lead single and first track "909" in early 2024 was nothing less than a breathtaking announcement that this would not be the thin and weary sound of early 2010s Starflyer. A crunchingly clean four-measure intro warps, in an instant, into a massive explosion of guitar, seemingly surrounding the listener with distorted minor chords from all directions. Dissonant single notes slowly, achingly bend, each one generating more quantities of real emotion than most guitarists can elicit in an entire solo. The crushingly stiff intro distortion and timeless quiet/loud dynamics of "My Lungs" echo as the slowly gathering feedback threatens to detonate your speakers. Mid-album highlight "No Sweat," at nearly seven minutes long, refuses to budge from its relentlessly sludgy pace as the sinister verses build to a towering chorus of power chords. While some of the eight tracks may feature melodies that more closely resemble pop hooks than the more brooding rock numbers, the sound is never anything but dense and gigantic.

It is a remarkable contrast from Vanity, an album (that I think is fantastic, to be clear) driven primarily by producer TW Walsh's synthesizers. Now Walsh has moved on, and while long-time bass player Steven Dail and Jason's drummer son Charlie Martin return, also featured are two of the most brilliant musical minds ever associated with the Velvet Blue label: Frank Lenz, himself a reputable solo artist and brilliant drummer who heavily influenced the sound of the aforementioned Talking Voice; and Rob Withem, frontman and guitarist of Fine China and one of the finest vocalists and songwriters there is, credited with keys and additional guitars. The album is mixed by Bob Hoag, who has previously mixed albums by Foxglove Hunt, Fine China, and Ronnie Martin that I consider to be some of the best ever made; Hoag stacks track on top of track and mixes every one with expert precision and clarity, and when Jason sings, his oft-underappreciated voice cuts through atop all the instruments, echoing seemingly everywhere all at once. With such an impressive array of musical talent, it's no wonder the sound is so immediately arresting.

Lust for Gold's lyrical sentiment is one of unyielding reflection on better times -- never in a way unnecessarily tainted by needless regret or affectations of sorrow, but always with a sentiment that is almost disarming in its absolute simplicity. "The best days of my life were in 909," Jason sings about the Riverside, California area code where he grew up. "YZ80" applies the filter of nostalgia and childhood friendship to a mini-motorcycle: "You were fast and you could win, you'll always be my oldest best friend." The nostalgia isn't limited to youth; "1995" looks back on the year when Starflyer's second album, the brilliantly lonely and chaotically noisy Gold, was released with no room for mis-interpretation: "I've never felt more alive than I did in 1995, when the future felt open wide." It's a somewhat ironic statement given the overwhelming sadness and misery that lyrically and musically pervaded Gold, an album Jason made with no other band members that features the weary verse "The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" in its liner notes (and, for what it's worth, still 30 years later is my favorite album of all time). But that's how nostalgia works I suppose; we look back on times that, in the moment, felt oppressive and miserable, and now with the benefit of hindsight, we treasure and long for those emotions all over again.

Of course, having made that reference, it's fair to wonder whether Jason's double meaning is intentional. Is the title Lust for Gold -- undoubtedly the closest that Jason has come to sustaining this thick wall of distorted sound for an entire album since 1995's God -- a genuine statement about the vain pursuit of wealth and success, or is it meant to slyly reference the seemingly irreplaceable desire for that old sound and the associated emotions of early 20s? Obviously, this album can't (and shouldn't) sound exactly like that. Gold is a mid-90s moment of shoegaze history that sounds incredibly representative of its time with its muddy, repetitive drums, almost non-existent bass, and unrestrained squealing feedback (certainly not a mix Bob Hoag would approve of). It's to the credit of Jason and everyone involved that this album sounds not like a three-decade old retread, but instead a completely modernized fully 2024 version of this classic sound.

What I know about these types of nostalgic emotions is that they are consuming, and that's exactly that the audio experience of this album is. It's a gigantic wall of stereo sound, multiple amplifiers, with Jason's distinctive treble boost turned up to a level where it sounds as though the whole thing may combust with every strummed power chord, and vocals absolutely soaked with reverb. The effect of listening with headphones, which I can't recommend enough, is to be completely surrounded in exactly the same way that these types of raw emotions often feel as though they have you cornered on all sides.

It's not just about nostalgia; Jason clearly is processing a lot as he sings, "It's been sixteen years of trials, sixteen years in a hole," in "No Sweat," a reference to the 2007 passing of his father and the resulting end of Starflyer 59 as a touring band. The community of faith, which Jason has never shied away from being a part of (you'll find "All praise and glory to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior" in nearly every Starflyer credits), is also not spared from Jason's candid reflection: "The Christians have found their own different ways / Oh God please help me find the ones that stayed," as honest and relatable an observation as I could imagine on the aptly-named "Everyone Seems Strange." And after 40 minutes of the nostalgia, reflection, and frustration, the album gently ends with the thoughtfully slow, but still sonically enormous "The Breaks," a track that musically would be perfectly at home on 1997's Americana, with its dreamy Fender surf tones, and lyrically a simple, accepting reflection on the endless change of life: "But no one really stays / They're going their own ways / 'Cause people always change / And them they are the breaks."

At only eight tracks, Lust for Gold is lean and mean, but every track packs such a distinct emotional wallop with its sound and gut-wrenching lyrical honesty. It's as full a listening experience as I can remember. It is the type of album where every song matters so much and has such a distinct identity and feel, I could write a separate feature-length review on each one of them and could, at various moments as I've spent months with this album, make a case for any one of them as my favorite. This album didn't just excite me while listening to it; it stuck with me long after. Every one of the eight songs individually took turns echoing in my head and my heart, and endlessly resonated because it doesn't just lyrically narrate the difficulties of aging; it sounds like those struggles. When the deep desire for nostalgia takes root, it is not a thin line that can be ignored; it is a noisy, encircling wall of emotion, and every memory and every longing and regret wails and aches prominently like every lead guitar note played here.

I was nervous before I listened to Lust for Gold the first time. As a 43-year-old, this band has been the soundtrack to my entire life, but I have certainly been disappointed by Starflyer 59 releases before. I loved Vanity so much I almost worried that Jason might not be content to go out on that high note. Yet, where Vanity was a creative rebirth, a clever and frequently fun album with a revitalized synth-driven sound, Lust for Gold is a gigantically noisy, sometimes tortured reflection on growing old, longing for the simplicity of the past, and the regrets of a life knowing that, while success was present at times, you never quite made it in the way you may have wanted to. The simmering discontent and in-the-moment frustration of Talking Voice twenty years ago has given way to a thoughtful emotional acceptance, delivered in the layered fuzzy tradition of noise established by the great early Starflyer albums. For this writer, Lust for Gold is the best album of 2024 and easily Starflyer 59's best album in at least 20 years for its ability to tap deep into a well of authentic emotion. It hits like a musical sledgehammer, but with a gentle and relentlessly genuine lyrical sentiment that I related to every single word of. Perhaps 30 years ago, "the future felt open wide," but I'm definitively convinced that all these decades later, this quiet legend still has so much bright future left.