“Starry” is one of those albums that cleverly plays on both sides of the border between mainstream and alternative. Accessible, yet retaining an air of mystery, “Starry” is a rich, intriguing offering. Featuring such guests as former NIN member Chris Vrenna and Faith And The Muse’s William Faith, Purr Machine’s album will seduce those who appreciate beautifully crafted music.

Los Angeles based Purr Machine is the fruit of the encounter between vocalist Betsy Martin (formerly of 80’s band Caterwaul) and Kevin Kipnis (formerly of deathrock band Kommunity FK). 
This is not an album that will blow you away from the first listen, although there are some genuinely brilliant tracks in there that command your attention straight away. You will learn to like it by listening again and again and discovering its multiple layers and discreet charms. 
Betsy and Kipnis seem to have first and foremost tried to make the album for themselves, using influences from all the music they love, crafting their songs in their own time, in their own terms. Hence the intimate feel of an album full of flowing, atmo- spheric sounds that journeys between pop, gothic rock, electronica and industrial, all led by Betsy’s distinctive vocals. 
The songs never completely burst into a full rage and prefer to inhabit a dreamy cocoon – perfectly expressed by the hypnotic title track that takes you to a universe where gravity does not seem to matter anymore. Not that Purr Machine haven’t got the potential of making a racket: the dynamic opening track “Get Close” and the haunting “Everlast” show a band who can turn the volume up when they want to; but it is the harsher “Choose Your Fire” with its distorted guitars and barely restrained aggression that reveals the fire inside; this is a track that would benefit immensely from the rawness of a live setting where it would be free to bare its teeth. 
Purr Machine have a talent for catchy, poppy melodies, but also for soothing, undulating atmospheric sounds. On the catchy side, the mellow “Sad I’m Gone” is a winner; the more classic sounding “Monkey Dreams” and “Not Anymore” are satisfying enough, . 
In an album crammed with seductive waves of gorgeous music: let tracks like “Nefarious”, “The Warning”, “Ember” or “Sister” get under your skin, I bet you will fall victim to the charms of Purr Machine. Half purring animal made of flesh and bone and half machine made of sizzling circuits, Purr Machine combine the organic and the electronic to make an hypnotic musical cocktail.
Fabienne T.,  17 May 2007
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Fan of multilayered U.S. - Gothicsound à la Faith and The MUSE watched out! Dreams atmospheric, also times more aggressive, electrically garnished Gothic sounds supplies that male/female duo PURR MACHINE from L.A., the city of the angels, with its current album Starry. The publication of the predecessor went went is past already eight years - one condemned long time in the Musikbusiness. Obviously PURR MACHINE used this time however to process around various influences in their music and a whole horde/hurdle at guest musicians together drums, to which among other things William Faith of the Gothic icon Faith and The MUSE already mentioned belongs. 
Starry is an album, which offers category conventions and trends in wonderful way the forehead and which listener provokes by an enormous range at sounds and tendencies. Thus the tendency goes times to direction Industrialrock, times is it diagonal Popkompositionen, times dreamed sound with nearly already Heavenly Voices well-behaved singing inserts, carried by Synthieteppichen, but nearly always is it the close sound arrangements, which distinguish PURR MACHINE. From the multicolored Stilpotpourri one fishes already so some small bead after repeated hearing. Aggressively the entrance comes along: GET CLOSE is a nearly already chaotically seeming Opener. Sad I' m of Gone works somehow like an drug-atomised Ballade, Monkey Dreams reminded of old clan OF Xymox Songs, later then Alternativpop (Keep ME in Mind) and the rockige ear worm Everlast in for instance the center that of album the meditative Titelsong a short Verschnaufpause offers. Unusually hard afterwards Choose Your Fire from the boxes sounds; being noisy guitars supply themselves here Stelldichein. The true highlights come however only late. With The warning designs the duo a mad tension elbow, which one misses in the remaining Songs something, shows it partly badly unstructured, songwriterisch somehow incompletely and does not come themselves into their Strukturlosigkeit frequently not on the point. The following getting thing Holding Back The Tears - a slow, schwermütig atomised roller of sound of mourning - is then also equal the second highlight.
Altogether schwächeln PURR MACHINE with so some Songs, so that Starry can become partly a arduous experience, since it is missing to some TRACKs at the necessary structure and the various elements and ideas are not converted to a rounded off whole one with red thread. Thus some is not unfortunately used here at existing potential. Nothing the defiance is Starry an unusual disk, which lovers of fastidious, demanding Gothic sounds should absolutely clean-pull themselves.
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