Love Is Here

Starsailor were formed in 1996 in Wigan by fellow students James Walsh on vocals and guitar, James Stelfox on bass, and Ben Byrne on drums.[1][2] They spent four-and-a-half year playing small venues in North West England.[3] After several line-up changes, Barry Westhead was brought in on keyboards at the beginning of 2000.[4] Walsh's brother Andrew worked at a management company and at Heavenly Records, and was impressed with his brother's vocal delivery and songwriting.[5] He booked the band for two shows in London in April 2000, which saw a writing from the NME in attendance.[1][5] The writer posted a highly positive review for one of the shows, which in turn started a bidding war between record labels. Andrew Walsh began co-managing the band with his boss from Heavenly, Martin Kelly.[5]

Mark Collen, the managing director of EMI imprint Chrysalis Records, had witnessed one of the shows, and expressed interest only halfway through the opening song of the set.[5] As Heavenly had ties with EMI, Walsh and Kelly were positive in having the band under EMI's direction; in July 2001, the band eventually signed to the company.[5][6] James Walsh said they picked that label as they "haven't got anything that sounds like us at all".[4] The band also signed a publishing deal with EMI Music Publishing, who proceeded to finance the making of a few demos.[5] In January and February 2001, the band toured the UK as part of the NME Carling Awards tour.[7] Due to the high quality of the demos, and the public's need for product, one of the demos, "Fever", was released as a single on 5 February 2001.[5][7] It had been produced by Mark Aubrey and the band.[8]

Also in February 2001, they performed on T4, The Late Late Show, and Top of the Pops.[9] Following this, the band went on headlining tours of mainland Europe in March 2001, and then the UK in April 2001.[9][10] "Good Souls" was released as a single on 23 April 2001, produced by Steve Osborne.[9][11] After this stint, the band began recording their debut album.[12] Sessions occurred in April and May 2001 over the course of six weeks at Rockfield Studios.[3][11] Osborne produced the sessions; Adrian Bushby served as recording engineer, with Pro Tools engineer Bruno Ellingham. Osborne did additional production on "Fever"; he mixed the recordings, before they were mastered by Ray Staff at Whitfield Street.[8]

Love Is Here has been compared to Parachutes (2000) by Coldplay, and The Invisible Band (2001) by Travis.[13] The album sees acoustic guitars matched with gentle piano chords, with Walsh's vocals recalling Jeff Buckley, and Richard Ashcroft of the Verve.[14] It saw the band lumped into the New Acoustic Movement, a scene that involved Travis and Badly Drawn Boy which blurred the lines between indie rock and folk rock.[15][16] Discussing the title, Walsh said the phrase acted as the album's theme, intending it to be "uplifting and positive, because everything around at the moment seems to have quite a cynical edge". He said they intentionally wanted it to sound like Grace (1994) by Buckley and Harvest (1972) by Neil Young.[11]

Love Is Here opens with the Eastern-influenced "Tie Up My Hands", which evolved out of an earlier folk version.[17][18] The Tindersticks-esque "Poor Misguided Fool" starts with a New Order-indebted intro section, and continues with a strumming pattern in the vein of "Coffee & TV" (1999) by Blur.[19][20][21] Walsh said it was a "bit of a riposte to the coke addled A&R men from an angry young man with a fragile ego".[22] A version of "Alcoholic" had been around for a few years, and was left unfinished until Westhead joined the band.[23] Walsh started "Lullaby" in his bedroom after seeing a headline in Uncut, and was later worked on with the band at their rehearsal space.[24] "Way to Fall" is in triple metre time; it talks about taking risks.[25][26] Walsh came up with the song in the studio while in the middle of making a documentary on the sessions.[27]

The psychedelia track "Talk Her Down" plays out as a Spaghetti Western film.[15][20] It was written after Walsh repeatedly saw a girl in a club, and began fantasising about her life.[28] "Love Is Here" evoked the sound of Zero 7; Walsh referred to it as "another call to arms to the unlucky in love".[29][30] "Good Souls" was compared to the work of the Verve and Embrace, due to its Hammond organ and use of strings.[31][32] Walsh said it was the oldest track on the album, and was his attempt at writing something in the vein of the Charlatans and Primal Scream.[33] When compared to the demo version, the album's closing track "Coming Down" was pared down to a vocal-and-guitar arrangement.[31] Walsh said it was about the pain a person experiences after the end of a relationship; it tells the story of two drug addicts in love.[34][35] It includes a hidden track of the band humming, which Osborne made the band do after they had a few drinks.[36][37]

In June and July 2001, Starsailor appeared at Fleadh festival in the UK, before supporting Dido and Travis on their co-headlining tour of the United States, and then toured Australia.[38][39][40] On 25 July 2001, Love Is Here was announced for release in less than three months' time, and the album's track listing was posted online.[40] They played three warm-up shows, leading up to an appearance at the Witnness and V Festivals in August 2001.[12][41] "Alcoholic" was released as a single on 17 September 2001.[40] Two versions were released on CD: the first with an "Let I Shine", an alternative version of "Alcoholic", and the music video for the song, while the second featured a cover of "Grandma's Hands" (1971) by Bill Withers, and a remix of "Good Souls".[42][43] Love Is Here was released on 8 October 2001 through Chrysalis Records, which coincided with a UK tour that ran into the following month.[8][44] "Good Souls" was released to US radio stations on 4 December 2001.[45] The band played a small number of US shows prior to an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien; "Lullaby" was released as a single on 10 December 2001.[46][47] The CD version featured "From a Whisper to a Scream", a live version of "Tie Up My Hands", and the music video for "Lullaby", while the DVD version included audio for "From a Whisper to a Scream", a live version of "Love Is Here", the "Lullaby" music video, and interviews.[48][49] They ended the year supporting the Charlatans on their three-date arena tour in the UK.[50]

Love Is Here was released in the US on 8 January 2002, which was promoted with a full tour of that territory supporting the Charlatans throughout the month, and an appearance on The David Letterman Show and Saturday Night Live.[47][51][52] In March 2002, the band went on a headlining tour of the US, culminating in a performance at South by Southwest.[53] "Poor Misguided Fool" was released as a single on 18 March 2002.[54] The CD version included "Born Again", a remix of "Poor Misguided Fool", and the music video for the song, while the DVD version featured audio for "Born Again" and "Hot Burrito #2", the "Poor Misugided Fool" music video, and interviews.[55][56] The band returned to the US as part of the MTV Campus Invasion tour throughout April 2002.[57] The band had to cancel some European festival dates due to Walsh becoming a father; they ultimately appeared at the Hultsfred and Roskilde Festivals the following month.[58] Shortly afterwards, they played at the Glastonbury and V festivals.[59] In September 2002, the Love Is Here Live video album was released; it included a live show from the previous year, alongside music videos and a tour film.[60]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	72/100[61]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[62]
Alternative Press	8/10[63]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[64]
The Guardian	[65]
NME	8/10[66]
Pitchfork	5.7/10[19]
Q	[67]
Rolling Stone	[68]
Slant Magazine	[35]
Uncut	[69]

Love Is Here was met with generally favourable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 72, based on 19 reviews.[61]

AllMusic reviewer MacKenzie Wilson wrote that while the band was not as "polished as its counterparts", the album stood as a "beautiful piece of work". She praised the band's decision to "go for something more positive as well -- each song soars with intricate musicianship and melodic lushness".[62] In a review for Entertainment Weekly, David Browne saw the band as being "more sensitive and gracefully shambolic" than their contemporaries "thanks to [the] overheated, self-absorbed" Walsh, as well as the "tumbling, rustic-countryside beauty of their music".[64] Victoria Segal of NME commended the band for making an album of "real emotional depth", with "an alluring assurance that means that even at its most vulnerable [...] there's an edge that pushes them way beyond the feathery, big-eyed, hatchling indie of Coldplay".[66] Slant Magazine's Sal Cinquemani wrote that Walsh's lyrics are "often obscure [...] but sting with each and every syllable". He added that "[b]rutal honesty resounds with every lyric, organ moan and guitar chord".[35]

The Guardian writer John Aizlewood referred to the band as being "both throwback and peek into the future", highlighting Westhead's "strident" piano parts and Walsh's "hyperventilating near-falsetto", making it sound like an "intricately produced tempest of an album".[65] Pitchfork contributor Christopher Dare complimented Osborne for being able to "craft a truly special sound here, lush and yet conveying an acoustic atmosphere". Though he criticised the majority of the songs for "sound[ing] too similar", as well as for Walsh's repetitive lyricism.[19] Jenny Eliscu of Rolling Stone said Walsh's "willowy-falsetto" enhanced some of the songs; however, it was a "shame his vocals invite close listening, because the lyrics tend to be pretty silly, full of mock profundities".[68] Blender's David Quantick said that if the album had a fault, it was due to the "slightly hand-wringing lyrics, which, if not overwrought, are certainly pretty darned wrought. A striking debut, but you might hope for a slightly broader emotional palette on future albums".[70]

Love Is Here charted at number two in the UK after selling over 58,000 copies in the first week.[45] It ranked at number 77 and 81 on the UK year-end charts for 2001 and 2002, respectively.[71][72] It also reached number two in Scotland,[73] number four in Ireland,[74] number 12 in Denmark,[75] number 20 in Italy,[76] number 23 in Norway,[77] number 25 in Austria,[78] number 26 in Germany,[79] number 37 in New Zealand,[80] number 42 in Sweden and the Flanders region of Belgium,[81][82] number 68 in Australia and the Netherlands,[83][84] number 72 in Switzerland,[85] number 78 in France,[86] and number 129 on the US Billboard 200.[87]

"Fever" charted at number 18 in the UK.[88] "Good Souls" charted at number 12 in the UK,[88] number 43 in Ireland,[89] and number 82 in the Netherlands.[90] "Alcoholic" charted at number ten in the UK,[88] number 42 in Ireland,[89] and number 89 in the Netherlands.[90] "Lullaby" charted at number 36 in the UK. "Poor Misguided Fool" charted at number 23 in the UK.[88] Love Is Here was certified platinum in the UK by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).[91] Q listed Love Is Here as one of the best 50 albums of 2001,[92] while NME rated it as the fifth best album of the year.[93]

All songs written by Starsailor.[8]

1. "Tie Up My Hands" – 5:46
2. "Poor Misguided Fool" – 3:51
3. "Alcoholic" – 2:56
4. "Lullaby" – 4:13
5. "Way to Fall" – 4:30
6. "Fever" – 4:03
7. "She Just Wept" – 4:12
8. "Talk Her Down" – 4:11
9. "Love Is Here" – 4:41
10. "Good Souls" – 4:53
11. "Coming Down" – 14:30 (ends at 3:07; includes hidden track)

Personnel per booklet.[8]

• Love Is Here at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)