 Media Credit: STARSAILOR.IT UK superstar group Starsailor was here last Sunday at Cabaret... in all its Britpop glory.
|
|
It seems these days that there are always four young lads from the UK knocking on the doorstep of the North American music scene. Whether through the anthem-like hooks of Coldplay or the drown-your-soul crooning of Travis' Fran Healy, bands across the Atlantic have a relatively easy time finding success in Europe.
However, success at home doesn't necessarily translate into acclaim and attention here. Starsailor is yet another in the line of British bands trying to carve a niche for themselves in the North American market.
The Lancastershire lads come up bigger on their sophomore album,
Silence is Easy. In addition, they've embarked on a North American tour that stopped in Montreal at Cabaret this past Sunday.
Lounging around at a Toronto pub while taking a break from a taping of
The Mike Bullard Show, bassist James Stelfox commented on the frigid Canadian weather as, "fuckin' horrible. Nothing like this back home right now."
Since its last Montreal appearance at Café Campus two years ago, Starsailor has "grown up a bit," said Stelfox. "This record is not as instantaneous as our first record. It's been difficult to break through in North America."
Despite
Silence debuting at No. 2 on the UK and Italy charts, as well as holding the No. 5 spot in Germany, and experiencing success on some of the Asian charts, Stelfox acknowledged that coming into Canada and the US results in playing smaller shows. "The small shows are actually enjoyable," he said. "It's almost like we're starting over again. It's a real challenge."
Sailing the winds of change
"Journalists find it easier to pigeonhole us into the same genre as Coldplay or Travis, but we have very different backgrounds from those bands. We have an edge to us live and are a grittier band," Stelfox said.
Starsailor's attempts to distance themselves from Coldplay and Travis took a rather unexpected turn when famed "Wall of Sound" record producer Phil Spector asked to work on the quartet's follow-up. The boys spent five weeks with Spector and his personal sound engineer.
"We reminded him of the greats-Harrison, Lennon-and that gave us a great ego boost. But our vision for the album was different from his and we had to let him go. He took it badly, but he came back with the realization that it was our project and we were the ones who ultimately controlled it."
In the end, Spector's production can be heard on two of the songs-the title track and "White Dove."
Silence is Easy is a much better album than the band's 2001 debut,
Love is Here. With strings and piano melodies abounding, Starsailor cheers up considerably, even through the strained vocals of singer James Walsh. Walsh's voice, reminiscent of the emotion of Jeff Buckley, can be annoying at times, but in comparison to their debut, is well tempered and more melodic. "Some of Us" combines soulful finger picking with piano strums, while Walsh waxes emotional on the piano ballad "Restless Heart": "My restless heart beats like a wanton drum/Tear me apart, say I'm your only one."
With each show in Montreal getting bigger and bigger, and the band seeing themselves "on a mission" to break into Canada, it shouldn't be too much longer before Starsailor finally can have "more swagger" such as it enjoys in Britain.
