Product Description

'On The Outside' is the third album by Jeff Buckley-influenced indie rockers Starsailor. Combining often intense and overtly political lyrical matter with intense and sometimes dark acoustic balladry, the album marks a change in direction of sorts for the Chorley-based four-piece. Includes the single 'In The Crossfire'.

Track Listing

1. In The Crossfire
2. Counterfeit Life
3. In My Blood
4. Faith Hope Love
5. I Don’t Know
6. Way Back Home
7. Keep Us Together
8. Get Out While You Can
9. This Time
10. White Light
11. Jeremiah

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22141 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-17
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Perhaps there's something just a little bit autobiographical to be deduced from the album title. Starsailor's third album On The Outside finds yesterday's next-big-thing fighting a defiant rear guard action against fading fortunes and particularly the tepid reception afforded to their last studio outing, Silence Is Easy. Starsailor's response to potential critical excommunication is to sound more devout about their oevre than ever before with the curling, overwrought vocals of James Walsh and the sang-froid of Barry Westhead's organ cementing a wall-of-sound that former producer Phil Spector never managed.

While they've hit on a singular signature and milked it for all it's worth--the plangent, acoustic murder-ballad "Jeremiah" being the most noticeable deviation from the script--On The Outside tenders Starsailor's most full-blooded assault on the "big breakthrough" to date with the angsty metropolitan blues of "I Don't Know" and the single "In The Crossfire"--among others--destined to increase the band's commercial currency. --Kevin Maidment

From the Label
Starsailor return with their third album,`On The Outside. Starsailor never stopped working, they continuously toured, only pausing to write and record their new album, and in the process have created an impassioned statement, a record of real honesty and urgency. Much of the record was recorded live which has aided the directness and captured the passion. Galvanised like never before, the band have produced their best work to date. Featuring the fantastic comeback single "In The Crossfire", the band's new album On The Outside was produced by Rob Schnapf (Beck, The Vines, Elliott Smith) and looks set to take the band to the new heights they deserve.

Customer Reviews

This is just a very good record and you should but it and listen
Starsailor may be lead my a red pillock but "On The Outside" is one of the great records of the last five years. From the opener of the impassioned and totally unexpexpected pleas of "In The Crossfire" through the sunshine criticism of "Keep Us Together" to the requiem of "Jeremiah" it stands as a truly great and totally underrated record.
Buy it now!

Meat on those bones please!
I've said it before and I'll say it again - you either like Starsailor or you hate them. The vocal is distinctive, the subject matter quite bleak, but the tunes are always good. This is the third album, and the first thing you note is that they've bought a few more amplifiers. Place this album in a shuffle playlist with anything else and you have to turn it waaay down to avoid being deafened.

The tunes are all still there. In The Crossfire sets the tone for a more rock-charged album, and Jeremiah is a mournful epilogue, based on a true story.

But, as with both the previous albums, it's just too short!

Prefer it to the first two
I came to Starsailor after hearing of their Jeff Buckley influences (and, of course, the Tim Buckley album reference in their name). However, I always found them a little... well, dull. I liked the music, but never quite got around to properly listening to it.

This changed after seeing them at Hyde Park Calling 2006, where I was particularly impressed with some tracks from the new album. Moreover, they showed a heavier, rockier side to them live which I sense in the new album, too. It's more lively, more listenable and more interesting.

I suppose old fans may therefore miss their old band, but for me this is a very positive evolution that reminds me a little of how Stereophonics have changed in the last years.