Starsailor - All The Plans [Single]

Virgin Records

June 8, 2009, 02:21 PM

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Starsailor (for me) will always first and foremost be known as the seminal Tim Buckley album I discovered by chance at an obscure record store in Exeter many moons ago. One of the most intense, bizarre and ahead of it's time records I own, it's amongst my favourite albums of all time and the groove has been worn down to buggery. Starsailor, the Coldplay-lite indie band have about as little in common with their name-sake as is humanly possible. We're looking here at mid-paced, plodding soft-rock with heart-on-sleeve (or foot-in-mouth depending on your point of view) lyrics and a crystal clean production.

This may all sound like condemnation but Starsailor's latest single 'All The Plans' has a subtle charm that went some way towards winning me over. It's heady Americana vibe is infectious and front man James Walsh has a truly stellar set of pipes (not exactly up there with either of the Buckley's but impressive all the same). The soft-focus Hammond Organ, delicate percussion and sparse, over-driven guitars (courtesy of Rolling Stones legend Ronnie Wood no less) all bleed into a warm, comforting sound which suits the songs romanticised proclamations of young love ("We are much too young, for anything to break"). It puzzles me why the band chose to release the song as a single seeing as the hooks are too gentle to work on radio and the chorus is practically non-existent. I could see this as a live favourite though, and it's anthemic fervour will go down swimmingly at their UK festival dates this summer.

In short 'All The Plans' is a lovely little song. It doesn't re-invent the wheel, (hell it doesn't even change any of the spokes) and I cant see it raising the bands middleweight commercial stock any higher but I'm confident it will consolidate their devoted fanbase. Good job lads but I'm still waiting on that avant-garde, jazz-rock, torch-song, psych-prog record we all know is in your blood.

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