DEMO CD

Review by Alexander Havering

To this point in their career, which spans just over a year, London’s Junkstar have been an excellent live band, (I’ve seen them twice) and as yet, an unsigned act with a distinctive sound and first-rate pop smarts.

On this showing of 7 songs, they are nearly ready to combine them into a fully cohesive album. Awash in heavy grooves and in-the-red treble, and drawing from self-confessed icons of cool the Dandy Warhols, Junkstar’s music shakes and wriggles within a self-defined aesthetic that’s perfectly suited to tales of city life, reflective consciousness and the dirtiest of the deadly sins.

It’s the interplay between the guitars, vocals and the songwriting that gives songs like “Sound of the City” and “Head Down” a real sense of depth. Repeated bursts of distortion take an otherwise maudlin sentiment like on “Amy” and give it a palpable menace at the end of the song, which never loses its pulsating pop heart. “Brothers and sisters” is anything but, grooving almost Blur-like at times, with a strong heartbeat and beautiful pop melodies as it offers up a view of family relationships (”We’ve been through darker days than now but we always knew we’d stick together”).

For me, Rock Bottom and Bluebottles are perfect pop songs that touch base with bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and Goldfrapp, but still have something original to offer. There is an upbeat current running through the ‘junkies’ musical oeuvre. They sound like a band enjoying what they do, and that matters, in today’s over studied moodiness, more than ever. There are notable exceptions to this rule, where lyrics about disappointment with the other, whether it be a friend or foe, (Rock Bottom) and wanting to forge meaning from our finite existence (Head Down) are met with uplifting riffs and hot-rod bass lines, which creates a nice paradox between music and words.

Almost every song here could work as a standalone single, and Junkstar might grow into a band who assert themselves as artists of real vision, if songs like “High” (arguably the best track on offer) “Sound of the City” and “Head Down” are indications of what’s to come.

Alexander

Their myspace link is:

www.myspace.com/junkstarband