|
Starsailor
On the Outside
(Artists
Addiction/Adrenaline)
First Appeared in The Music Box, August 2006, Volume 13, #8
Written by John Metzger
The fall from "next big thing" status to the has-been heap comes quickly. For
Starsailor, it happened virtually overnight when the critics who fawned over the
band’s debut Love Is Here switched course on a whim and panned its
sophomore outing Silence Is Easy. Whether it was because rock journalists
are both fickle and prone to acting like lemmings or whether it was due to some
sort of cultural backlash against Phil Spector — who not only had produced two
songs on the endeavor but also had been indicted for murder just prior to its
release — is made moot by the issuance of the group’s third effort On the
Outside. Given the urgency of Starsailor’s delivery, it’s immediately
apparent that the ensemble isn’t about to slip quietly into the night.
Working alongside producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, The Vines), Starsailor parlayed
the lush, folk-rock melodiousness of Love Is Here as well as the
larger-than-life production of Silence Is Easy into a launching pad for
the aggressive charge of On the Outside. Throughout the lean, 11-track
set, the band surrounds its melodramatic musings with a heady swirl of driving
rhythms and chiming guitars. The biggest difference, however, is the confidence
exuded by front man James Walsh who loses most of his past Jeff Buckley-isms in
favor of an impassioned, Bono-esque wail.
Still problematic are Starsailor’s lyrics, but the ensemble occasionally
sidesteps its tendency toward sappy ruminations by looking outward and turning
more political. Over the course of On the Outside, the group addresses,
among other things, the sparring between Protestants and Catholics in Belfast (Get
Out While You Can), crass materialism (Counterfeit Life), and the
murder of a Jewish boy at the hands of Neo-Nazis (Jeremiah). In addition,
the group continues to struggle to find a distinctive flair that it can call its
own, and in effect, it has transformed its penchant for Coldplay and Travis into
a fascination with the harder-edged rock of U2 and Oasis. While it’s searching
for an identity, however, Starsailor at least is making consistently enjoyable
efforts such as On the Outside. 
On the Outside is available from Amazon.com.
To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
| 
