Turin Brakes vs Starsailor (a reviewers comparison)
Welcome to Semiacoustic Singer-Songwriter Celebrity Deathmatch, ladies and gentlemen. In the red corner, the band with the earnest lifeworn lyrics and the wavering falsettos, and in the blue corner, eh the other band that em does them tings. Turin Brakes’ opening salvo of slide guitar has an early upper hand, folks, their chorus (“These are the days/ that are driving me crazy”) is proving to be pretty formidable, it’s got Starsailor in a pretty serious-looking headlock, this could be a short matchup gents and ladies, we could all be getting our last bus yet, but wait! James Starsailor’s falsetto is holding him off, it’s so much bigger than Olly Brakes’, oh look, he’s getting tangled in it, this could be anybody’s, folks, and – Hold on, Starsailor are using post-‘Yellow’, Coldplay-derived anthemic song structures! We didn’t see that coming, Turin Brakes wouldn’t have been prepared for that, and now – Ah! It sounds like wah guitar, yes, the ‘Sailor are bringing out the wah guitar, and – Oh my god, a prettily pinging third guitar line, and – Folks, it’s the chorus – “Silence is easy/It just becomes me” – and he’s torn his head off, ladies and gentlemen! And – Oh my goodness, Starsailor have female backing vocalists! Backing vocalists at the outro, and – holy cow, they’re flooding the arena! What a turnout! It’s all over, folks! And this Saturday night hip hop-and-punk-loving crowd are going wild! I’m going straight to hell.