Starlite Campbell Band - The Language Of Curiosity - Supertone

"The two are also imaginative arrangers... Campbell sings powerfully on most of the tracks with Starlite occasionally taking over lead vocals. On ‘It Ain’t Right’ her singing is intimate and plaintive and there’s a delicious multi-tracked harmony interlude. And on the fade out of ‘Ride On Cowboy’ her whispered ‘Come on, make me feel good... get your spurs on and ride’ is very erotic" Trevor Hodgett, RNR Magazine

 

The core members of Starlite Campbell Band are singer-guitarist Simon Campbell and his bassist wife Suzy Starlite. The band is clearly influenced by British blues and blues-rock outfits of the late 60s and 70s with ‘Gaslight’, for one, being rug- cuttingly, swaggeringly Stonesy. But the two are also imaginative arrangers so that although ‘Said So’, with its heavy fuzz guitar sound, might call to mind early Kinks, the song also features a contrastingly delicate guitar solo, which somehow veers into psychedelia.

‘Take Time To Grow Old’ features words of encouragement for those fighting the passage of time (‘There’s no need to fade away...’) and concludes with a guitar solo which starts off sweetly elegiac but then becomes assertive and celebratory, before a simple acoustic piano coda ends the song ambiguously. 

Campbell sings powerfully on most of the tracks with Starlite occasionally taking over lead vocals. On ‘It Ain’t Right’ her singing is intimate and plaintive and there’s a delicious multi-tracked harmony interlude. And on the fade out of ‘Ride On Cowboy’ her whispered ‘Come on, make me feel good... get your spurs on and ride’ is very erotic.

Trevor Hodgett, RNR Magazine : printed only - subscribe

★★★★