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Album title: Speak Slowly
Artist: The Stars of Heaven
Nationality: Irish
Year: 1988
Genre: Pop Rock, Indie Rock
Chronology: 2 of 2
What this album means to me: I think it was one of the first albums by an Irish band (U2 and Thin Lizzy aside of course) that I found I could really enjoy. Generally, I had found (and I may have been looking in the wrong places of course) that Irish rock, or even pop, was pretty embarrassing and disappointing. I loved this album, and the fact that it’s such a rarity makes me love it even more now.
Highlights: Every Other Day, Lights of Tetuoan, What Else Could You Do, 2 O’Clock Waltz, Little England, Unfinished Dreaming
Lowlights: None
Lyric of the album: I really can’t remember; I just loved them all.
I may very well have bought this album for the cover. In case you don’t know, that’s a picture of the wheel of a train engine on the front, but as you won’t know unless you’re a) Irish and b) as old as me, it’s in the old colours of the rail company CIE (it’s Irish, don’t ask) who are now Irish Rail, or Iarnrod Eireann. All the trains are now green (how predictable) but back when I was young they were all orange. Not quite sure why, as traditionally orange is the colour of Protestantism and the North, as shown on our flag, but there it is. Some of the buses were too, though most of them were, again for some odd reason, cream and navy. Hmm. Anyway I might just have liked the cover, and if that’s why I bought it, I’m glad for two reasons. One, that I now have a perfectly-preserved photo of a train (well, the wheel of one) like the ones I used to go on, and two, the album turned out to be great.
The band didn’t last long, putting out two albums and an EP (this being their last) before splitting in 1990, but they are, to my mind (and that of some others too I believe) the great could-have-beens of Irish rock. I mean, the tag says pop rock and indie rock, but really this album is more country rock than anything. It just bristles with great tracks, and there’s really not a bad one among them. The singer had a lovely soft yet powerful voice, quite suited to this kind of often laid-back country rock, and the guitarists knew what they were about. It did quite well in Ireland, and one of the tracks was even covered by Everything But the Girl, but let’s be honest here: the Stars of where? Nobody knows them, and probably nobody ever will. That’s a real shame, because this album, which is really hard to find though I see now YouTube finally have it, is worth investing the time to give it a listen.
Unfinished dreaming, indeed.
https://youtu.be/6ufMXCu5TJE