Starry Saints: Serenade

Starry Saints: Serenade
Formed in Portland, Oregon, the trio known as Starry Saints make a lot of noise. Three member bands can sometimes come off seeming quaint, like something is missing. Utilizing electronic keys, drum machines, and guitars, Starry Saints make sure to fill up your time listening to their debut album Serenade. One listen and it’ll be no wonder that Starry Saints opened for The Killers.
The opening track “Angels” is a noise pop extravaganza. Elements of ambiance and electro come together to give the song a dance feel. It’s not overly poppy. It quickly brought to mind comparisons to tracks on Jeniferever‘s Silesia. It’s a little poppy, a little mellow, and a lot of good melody.
The group sound like The Raveonettes on “Go”. Simple guitars, a tamborine, and the garage rock feel of the song seems like something the Danish duo might perform. But again, the heaviness of the instruments all playing together comes along nicely. It seems like there are far more than just three musicians at play.
“Wild Horses” sounds almost like a cover song of a track from the 50’s or 60’s. It has this lovey-dovey feel to it with a laid back style. Take out the acoustic instruments and substitute the electronics of Starry Saints, modernize it a bit with our production techniques of today, and you’ve got yourself a track to groove to.
Overall I found Serenade to be a good album that does little in terms of giving us something new. I usually like this type of sound. Perhaps the fact that there are bands out there that have found a niche in performing electro noise pop, such as The Raveonettes, I was looking for something more. One way to describe Starry Saints based off this album is as a diluted The Killers. I can certainly see the two bands touring together, Starry Saints at this time don’t seem like more than a warmup for the more popular group.
Rating: 4.7/10
MP3: Starry Saints “Hello”
Buy: iTunes

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