Clean lines, driving guitar lines and solid percussion: Starsailor are intimately acquainted with the ingredients of a rock sound, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts on All This Life, their fifth album, and first since 2009.
Lead singer James Walsh's uncompromising vocal delivery is a competent anchor, but he has little to work with, lyrically. Cliche-ridden aphorisms trip over themselves on his falsettoed Take a Little Time, while its companion piece, Caught in the Middle, lumbers along on an overproduced percussion track that feels like it's been locked in a time warp circa 2001.
Contrary to what their album title touts, Starsailor are doing very little listening to their own hearts here. A boon, perhaps, for long-time fans eight years waiting in the long grass. For the rest? Ho hum.
