North West rockers Starsailor share new single 'Better Times', taken from their first album in six years, Where The Wild Things Grow.
‘Better Times’ is “an acoustic driven song about remaining positive through testing times under-pinned by an infectious Byrdsesque 12 string riff & gospel vocals (Lucy Joules),” says James Walsh. Where The Wild Things Grow underlined the bands relevance almost 25 years on from their first release.
The single is the follow-up to previous single ‘Heavyweight’. Debuted live during their 20th anniversary tour of their debut album, Love Is Here in 2022 and showcasing some extraordinary prog-infused guitar histrionics, ‘Heavyweight’ is a straight up love song seen through the lens of boxing – punch drunk love.
Listen to ‘Better Times’ by Starsailor on the Liverpool Official playlist on Spotify.
Formed in and around Wigan at the start of the millennium and featuring James Walsh (guitar, vocals), James Stelfox (bass), Barry Westhead (keyboards) and Ben Byrne (drums), Starsailor have released five albums to date: Love Is Here (2001), Silence Is Easy (2003), On The Outside (2005), All The Plans (2009) and All This Life (2017). A greatest hits compilation entitled, Good Souls: The Greatest Hits surfaced in 2015, featuring all ten of their UK Top Forty singles to date, including their biggest hit, ‘Silence Is Easy’, which reached #9 in 2003.
On the new album, Starsailor canter through a record of astonishing complexity. Where The Wild Things Grow features additional guitar work from Rick McNamara and Travis’s Andy Dunlop, as well as backing vocals by Lucy Joules (Sam Smith). Rick, himself, who produced the album, is now unofficially ‘the fifth Starsailor’, or, as Walsh puts it, “another creative in the room who really cares about the songs and pushes us to our limits.”
Over the past two decades, Starsailor have been compared to everyone from Neil Young and Van Morrison, to Wigan compatriots, The Verve. Where The Wild Things Grow bears up to candid analysis, repeat listens proving it to reveal layer upon layer of casual observations and quiet reflections on life being loved, and love being lived. It’s also an album that has no right to be as good as it is – and yet here it is.
After the huge success of the Part 1 show in March the band have also announced Part 2 of their Where The Wild Things Grow Tour of UK and Europe later this year, along with UK and European festival dates this summer and winter.
