STARSAILOR 'FEVER' (Chrysalis)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Save the complaints. We're already bored of them. The fact is that some people are always going to hate Starsailor because others are enthusiastic about them. They'll always despise them because they've been handed so many of the things that other bands work years for and never achieve.

If you can put all that to one side for the minute, though, let's not forget the reason that Starsailor are everyone's favourite name to drop (hello, The Sun). They write unbelievable songs. Songs full of hope, longing and despair, the very extremes of every emotion used with such precision, such wisdom even, it's staggering to discover that cherubic, fascinating lead singer James Walsh is just 20. This is a band, remember, who only played their first gig last April and have yet to even record a debut album. Yet Walsh's voice already sounds timeless, wailing and soaring as if his very being depended on it. He's already been compared to both the Buckleys, to Richard Ashcroft, Chris Martin, and everyone else who's ever approached icon status. The truth, of course, is he's forging his own path.

That's how you know Starsailor are really special. And so, finally, here's the evidence. It could so easily have been a disappointment. Instead, the songs here are of such staggering beauty that they don't sound like a single and a couple of B-sides. They sound like the opening trio of songs on an album. Third track 'Love Is Here' is especially affecting, tender in its simplicity beside the more dramatic, rippling Doors organ in 'Fever'. Casually accomplished, devastatingly direct Ð forget everything you've been told and just listen. Starsailor will make your mind up better than we ever can.

NME 'Single of the Week' 3/2/01

LAL/STARSAILOR/BLACK MOSES
LONDON NME ON NIGHT, THE MONARCH

Once more, dear friends, into the bearpit of the "industry buzz" gig. A room full of people who either work for a band and are demanding a short-cut to comfortable retirement, or who don't work for the band and are willing abject, told-you-so disaster. No place for the meek or faint of heart. Which is unfortunate as they are normally on the stage.

Tonight, though, The Monarch witnesses a true rarity: a band who reaches out between the two factions and unites them with the simple attributes of beautiful songs performed with moving conviction. That's Starsailor, four young men from Wigan in their very early twenties who come packing semi-acoustic dynamics of swoonsome force, along with a cherubic singer, James Walsh, whose voice lifts and soars and massages the soul like...a true original. In the (slightly altered) words of a famous Norwegian commentator - Fran Healy, Chris Martin, Danny McNamara, Mark Greaney: your boys took a hell of a beating tonight! There are two other bands billed. Black Moses, who are neither of those things but in fact from Wycombe and starring ex-members of Thee Hypnotics and Penthouse - ergo old-fashioned blues explosion by old-fashioned guys. And Love As Laughter, the mighty Seattle garage band making a rare trip to these shores to loudly play excellent songs that sound almost identical to those by Sonic Youth. LAL perform with gusto and roll around on the floor a bit, but such spirited action is tinged with the battle-weary knowledge in singer Sam Jayne's eyes that he's in the right group in the wrong place, at the wrong time (i.e. New York, 1979).

In this back-to-basics R'n'R company one could imagine that Starsailor seem incongruously dainty. Not a bit of it. They are very much the tasty filling that magics the other two knobbly bits of bread into a delicious sandwich. As the name might suggest, their music follows a path that could well have originated with Tim Buckley. That's an improvement on just copying Jeff Buckley, natch, but beyond the name and the fact that like many Walsh sings big-hearted songs while strumming an acoustic guitar it's hard to pin many reference points on Starsailor.

There's a touch of Ashcroft in his range and the passionate, bloody sweep of songs like 'Alcoholic', the torch-burning 'Love Is Here', and future number one, 'Lullaby'. They also cover Gram Parson's 'Hot Burrito Number 2', the burrito of choice for discerning GP fans, with a verve and knowing attention to detail that would be beyond most bands. And here's where the only concern arrives, that they are (i)too(i) good, too in charge of their instruments for their debut London gig.

Let's not quibble, though... Starsailor write massive, life-affirming songs. They burn with the same intensity and self-belief that informed the early history of their home region's greats. And they are fronted by a young man of genuine potential iconic appeal. The future's arrived just in the nick of time.

LONDON W1 SOCIAL

Without wanting to sound premature, we're onto something here. In the week that Coldplay prove brittle romanticism is a going commercial concern, NME strolls into The Social on a balmy Wednesday evening and finds what can only be described as their natural successors.

Starsailor are from Warrington and this is only their second London gig - but exactly like the first time NME saw Coldplay, they're a group who've arrived fully formed. Tonight they play a six-song acoustic set, and it's amazing.

Singer James Walsh is 20 years old and fits into the current pervading trend for aping Jeff Buckley. Unlike JJ72 and their ilk, however, his songs have a universal feel, a million miles away from the sixth-form method acting of his peers. The first song, 'Fever', buoyed by his casual falsetto and carried forward by a strung-out acoustic melody, instantly puts you in the picture. Starsailor make music that echoes the cracked simplicity of early-'70s Neil Young, and the last song they play ('Alcoholic') is reminiscent of the quavering emotion of Young's most bleak album, 'Tonight's The Night'.

In between, they play four songs that vary from a Verve-esque throb to the kind of acoustic directness that Coldplay are currently revelling in. Record companies should start queuing here.