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Starsailor 'Silence Is Easy'

added 11 September 2003 at 15.59

From Applying make-up, to spreading Marmite, to making music, less is more. It took fathering a child for Starsailor frontman James Walsh to realise quite how annoying the sound of wailing can be. Consequently, he and his band are now, slowly but surely, learning the subtle art of restraint.

Starsailor’s instrumentally and vocally overwrought debut, 2001’s 'Love Is Here', was the indie equivalent of operetta. Yet, it established the four-piece as the mainstream’s, bards of bombastic miserablism, and sold a million copies. As a consequence, even before the courtroom drama, the prospect of Phil Spector in the control booth – a producer whose name has rarely been linked to the word "restraint" – was as frightening to doubters as it was flattering to the band.

Breathe out, however, because compared to the attention-seeking 'Love Is Here', this sophomore effort finds Starsailor much more at ease. Walsh’s over-board, Jeff Buckley-esque moan has softened: no longer cocky, just content, it doesn’t thrash through songs like a petulant child having a supermarket strop. Warm and swelling with emotion, Walsh’s voice is the perfect vessel for the album’s songs of devotion and identity: soft yet hard like flakes of rust.

Musically too, Starsailor are more comfortable, content to slip into the Gap slacks of middle youth. Although The Verve’s 'Urban Hymns' influence is still felt, the Lancashire lads no longer cling barnacle-like to their Wigan neighbours’ musical blueprint. Instead, 'Silence Is Easy' is utterly unconcerned with the notion of cool. Opening track, ‘Music Was Saved’, is a sparkling shower of ocean-fresh guitar melodies, while ‘Telling Them’ is a lifting ballad filled with Michael Nyman-esque cinematic orchestral splendour.

The problem is, in toning-down the over-elaborate intensity of their music, Starsailor have also blunted what little edge they has, muting passion that fired their debut. Most of 'Silence Is Easy' is indie-lite, drifting about instrumental loneliness – bells, strings and massed guitars. Both Spector’s contributions, the Radiohead-meets-Vivaldi ‘White Dove’ and the West Coast piano-stomping title track, are the sonic equivalent of the proverbial dizzy blonde: pretty, but without substance. However, there are some exceptions: ‘Four To The Floor’ is redeemed by its bite, driving fervour and addictive bass. The hypnotically chilling and gorgeously understated ‘Shark Food’, meanwhile, is a faultless example of the sort of restraint Starsailor should be looking to perfect. Less in this case may mean even more sales, but musically less here really is MOR.

Tagged as Starsailor, archive

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