Review Summary: The unnecessary comeback
Remember Starsailor? That soft rock band with a whiny vocalist who made Coldplay sound exciting and who many people know only because of accidentally getting a song in the credits of Metal Gear Solid 3? They were one of those bands that referred to as post-britpop. Despite the name, the bands did not take inspiration so much from Oasis or Blur or Suede as much as The Bends and OK Computer era Radiohead. Among these bands Starsailor have always been in an awkward place, because they neither achieved the commercial success of Coldplay, Travis or Keane nor the critical acclaim of Elbow and Doves. They have been in the second tier with bands such as Embrace or Thirteen Senses.
And while they never produced a great album, they have made a few enjoyable singles. Such as the bouncy "Poor Misguided Fool" with beat reminiscent of Blur's "Coffee & TV", catchy strings led "Four to the Floor" , rocking "In the Crossfire", even "Tell Me It's Not Over" a song about infidelity with a piano melody extremely similar to a certain Coldplay track was an enjoyable track from otherwise average album.
So after 8 years of absence the band finally came back and one has to wonder what could lead the band to that decision since most people probably forgot this band even exists.
The album starts with the relatively upbeat first 3 singles, "Listen to Your Hart", (with one of the most unimaginative track titles ever), the title track and "Take a Little Time" with annoying "ta da da da da" vocals in background. Those songs are far from amazing, but at least they are somewhat memorable. After that point most tracks start quickly melting into each other, with "Sunday Best" and "Blood" being average attempts at sentimental ballads. The only interesting track afterwards is relatively catchy "Best of Me". The lowest point of the album comes with "FIA", an unnecessarily overlong and drab track, which also contains possibly one of the worst lyrics of the year:
"Nothing's impossible when you say *** it all"
No comment.
When one listens to Starsailor's comeback album, he just keeps asking one question: Why, why did this album come out in 2017? This style of music was basically dead 10 years ago. And this album certainly won't change that when most other similar bands are either on hiatus or moved on from this style.
But overall despite all the complaints, All This Life not a bad album, it's a fairly pleasant listen, but so incredibly mediocre that there is nothing intriguing or offensive about it. Well, apart from some extremely tacky lyrics.
