Speedstar
Forget The Sun, Just Hold On
Capitol

The first album from Brisbane band Speedstar was nothing like this at all. This, their second studio album, is a lush affair of horns, strings, piano, electronic bleeps and guitar. The first album was quite standard melodic rock music.

It would be lazy journalism to label Speedstar as an "Australian Coldplay". However I am not a journalist so I will label them in any way I please.

What we need is a point of difference between the "Australian Coldplay" (Speedstar) and the "British Coldplay" (Coldplay). I know... how about the fact that the Australian Coldplay are not very, very, very annoying. Where Chris Martin sings about things that sound nice but mean nothing, Speedstar's Alister Bell sings about the pains of a life lived as a very (overly) sensitive young man.

Most of the lyrics are pretty maudlin. Not in an angry way. More in a "yep. life sure is painful. Lets just be resigned to that fact and make an incredibly beautiful album about all that pain" kind of way.

Yet... in that thought there seems to be some joy for the Speedstar boys. In the knowledge that their pain is what allows them to write these beautiful pop songs there are some really joyous and upbeat moments on the album. Feeling the pain of the world is what inspires many of these songs, but the feeling of relief in the knowledge that this is exactly how the world is supposed to be is what inspires the rest of the songs on this album. The "yeah the world is painful... but its supposed to be like this so we can still be happy" feeling comes across most notably in the first radio single "Unbreakable" and the potential radio single "One Sunny Day".

That last paragraph might not mean much to you but it made sense to me while I was writing it. These album reviews will get better I promise.

When all is said and done, this is a good album, made by a band who are worth watching in the future.

ExistAngst rates this album: 7/10