Isaiah 13:10 The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.
A small, but beautifully formed object, pretty much lost in the mists of time, the first side of Stars of Heaven's Sacred Heart Hotel EP is still something I return to occasionally thirty years after it was first released in 1986. Formed in 1983 in Dublin, their independently financed debut single Clothes of Pride brought them to the attention of the Rough Trade Record Label and this was the first fruit of that union.
A quietly assured band, their influences were clear. The Byrds, Dylan and Gram Parsons, Country and Western and also The Velvet Underground, Television, the early R.E.M.albums and the Paisley Underground bands. But they also had a clear individualistic literary Irish imprint to their songs. A breathy folkiness, that gave their songs a warm glow, and made you feel that you were listening to them in a warm pub in Ireland with a roaring open fire and a whisky glinting back at you on the bar in front of you.
'Falling to pieces. In a suburb from hell. The residents bar at the Sacred Heart Hotel.'
Their best songs were finely honed, with each instrument weaving in and out of the mix each note planned to fit. I'd number the first two songs on their EP among these. Sacred Heart Hotel itself where the guitars chime and lock like Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd warming up for a show. The vocals are intoned and there's a specific intense but beautifully felt, Catholic grip and introspection to the lyrics of lead singer Stephen Ryan.
'See the crystal dissolve...fall like the wave on the sea...'
Talk About it Now maintains and deepens the effect. It's full of that deeply felt emotion and earnestness that is somehow particular to young men in their early twenties. If the band had just stopped here they would have made their statement. Sadly the rest of the songs on the record don't reach this high water mark. Moonstruck shimmers nicely and rolls off into a jig but is slightly throwaway in comparison with the two tracks that have gone before.
There's a yearning rush though to So You Know which is reminiscent of The Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade as the guitars rush into psychedelic duelling and Ryan has a distinctive, earnest presence, an Irish Michael Stipe. These four songs made up the band's first John Peel session and were really what they had to offer at this point in time.
The second side is of negligible value and suddenly the band are earthbound and sound like a rather poorly produced indie band like countless others of the time and the spell cast by the first few songs is broken. It's a shame, because there's a definite quiet creativity to their sound but a sense that they had an original spark that they never fully realised.
Later in the same year the band released the Holyhead EP which had a couple of songs which did achieve some of the understated majesty of the first side of Sacred Heart Hotel. Never Saw You, has a quiet, calm confidence that glows again and Widow's Walk (no link - you'll need to go to Spotify) is just thrilling in every way its lyrics beautifully crafted and conveying a quiet, sad poetic edge that seems beyond the band's tender years.
'Out in the harbour,
On the Widow's Walk,
The wind bites our lips,
As we try to talk,
And the sea is as blue,
As a country drunk,
Trying to sing,
The Tennessee Waltz.
Watching the mail boats,
And the Harbour Madonna glow,
I thought of the times,
I was glad to go,
Now there's something to hold me,
There's something I want to know,
Why do you get what you want,
When you don't want it anymore..
In the tin town of Visie(?),
Making a crown,
For the high king of nowhere,
His time's come around.
But here in the shadow,
Of the Mariner's Church,
An immigrant's prayer,
Is the only sound.
Now there's something to hold me,
There's something I want to know,
Why do you get what you want,
When you don't want it anymore..'
So, The Stars of Heaven. They released a full album Speak Slowly in 1988 which apparently label boss Geoff Travis didn't like and he was right because it's generic and polished but also hollow and charmless and lacking in the character that had made them so promising. Little on it speaks like the band's best 1986 songs. For these I'm grateful! They went their separate ways two years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment