Description:
Although Love Is Here, Starsailor's anxious, soulful folk and urban blues nuanced inaugural album will be less of a culture shock to any scene-follower who experienced, say, Tom McRae's debut from 2000, it will certainly jolt the core beliefs and common cultural values of the British indie scene. Nothing about Starsailor is remotely alternative--at least not in the conventional interpretation of the word--nor perfunctorily fashionable or juvenescent. Cool dads will appreciate them every bit as much as the hip kids. After all, not only is tender-aged singer James Walsh proud to admit to being influenced by Van Morrison and Tim Bu
Although Love Is Here, Starsailor's anxious, soulful folk and urban blues nuanced inaugural album will be less of a culture shock to any scene-follower who experienced, say, Tom McRae's debut from 2000, it will certainly jolt the core beliefs and common cultural values of the British indie scene. Nothing about Starsailor is remotely alternative--at least not in the conventional interpretation of the word--nor perfunctorily fashionable or juvenescent. Cool dads will appreciate them every bit as much as the hip kids. After all, not only is tender-aged singer James Walsh proud to admit to being influenced by Van Morrison and Tim Buckley--blimey, it's like punk never happened--he is also gifted with a larynx as gnarled, emotionally articulate and demonstratively tremulous as the all-time great and latterly underrated Roger Chapman. Debut or no debut, Love Is Here is an assured classic, the exposition of impending mid-life crises and buttoned-up desperation (typical lyric: "I need to be alone while I suffer") conveyed through an impassioned and distinctly non-rock lexicon of shuffling jazz percussion, metronomic acoustic guitars and keyboards which veer--Ray Manzarek style--between decorative cocktail piano and ice rink organ (courtesy of former crematorium organist Barry Westhead). The gooseflesh frisson of "Tie Up My Hands" and "Poor Misguided Fool" is palpable, the taut, dispirited burnout of "Fever" and "Talk Her Down" fantastically lucid. Are Starsailor the future of British pop? Let's bloody hope so. --Kevin Maidment
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Manufacturer: Chrysalis
Release date: 8 October 2001
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0724353535025 UPC: 766488047424
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