Starsailor - All This Life '2017

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. Listen to Your Heart
02. All This Life
03. Take a Little Time
04. Caught in the Middle
05. Sunday Best
06. Blood
07. Best of Me
08. Break the Cycle
09. Fallout
10. Fia (Fuck It All)
11. No One Else


The fifth studio album from Britains Starsailor, 2017s All This Life is a
sophisticated, organically produced album that nicely balances the expansive
lyricism of their early albums with the robust stadium rock they embraced during
the mid- and late 2000s. Still centered on the passionate warble of lead
singer/songwriter James Walsh, Starsailor are a band caught somewhat out of
time. Influenced by a combination of classic rock acts like the Beatles and Pink
Floyd, they also draw easy comparisons to contemporary artists like Jeff
Buckley, Radiohead, and Coldplay. Bursting onto the scene in 2000, they appeared
just after the hype over Brit-pop bands like Oasis and Blur had begun to
dissipate. After the release of the highly anticipated Phil Spector
collaboration Silence Is Easy, the excitement surrounding the band cooled and
Starsailor were left to move forward in a more discreet fashion, and in the
process, develop their songwriting skills and studio savvy. Produced by Embrace
guitarist Richard McNamara, All This Life is Starsailors first full-length album
of new material since 2009s All the Plans. The extended hiatus seems to have
worked for them, as theyve come up with what is easily their most mature and
balanced production to date. Cuts like the dynamic Listen to Your Heart, with
its orchestral flourishes, and the moody folk-rocker All This Life, with its
echoey piano accents and hooky, effusively delivered chorus, grab you from the
start and beg for future spins. Theres also a deft level of stylistic growth
here on tracks like the Bowie-esque Take a Little Time and the steamy 70s soul
number Caught in the Middle. Of course, they still know how to write a yearning
ballad, and here we get one of their best in the dusk-toned Sunday Best. Built
around a delicately articulated acoustic guitar pattern and marked by Walshs
sanguine, potent yawp, the evocative heart-wrencher builds slowly to a
spiraling, Floyd-worthy ending complete with a female backing chorus and a storm
of guitar atmospherics. All that and youre still only halfway through the album.
Thankfully, the back half is just as compelling, full of impactful rock anthems
like the gospel-inflected Blood and the organ-steeped, Rattle and Hum era
U2-sounding Best of Me. Ultimately, Starsailor have been around long enough to
earn veteran rocker status and All This Life, with its perfect balance of
emotional gravitas and buoyant lyricism, is an album worthy of that status.

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