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The Star Spangles - Which Of The Two Of Us Is Gonna Burn This House Down? Warner/ Chappell Music Released 18.11.02 The Star Spangles have been, and i quote from the press release, "causing a huge stir" Stateside. Now doesn’t that smell like hype. I was gonna bin this outright till I noticed that they’re supporting Idlewild at the end of the year. And for some reason I trust Roddy Woomble’s judgement. That is, if he picked this lot, but considering they’ve had Ikara colt and more recently the Beatings supporting I thought why not. So. The Star Spangles are four spotty white kids with hilariously rock n roll names like Joey Valentine and Tommy Volume. Tommy Volume - that’s a good one. Point to them. And they come from New York, and they play garage rock, so do you think they’d be stupid enough to look like the Strokes too? Indeed yes. Although that’s not stupid. That’s smart. That’s how they got a record deal. Because this has lets make a quick buck out of some clueless kids written all over it. The Star Spangles are just another band in the racks, with nothing to mark them out. Not even the songs, for they're pretty much unremarkable. For a song with that title, you’d expect more anger and passion and burning down of houses. But you get, instead, a not half bad little garage rock song, with some nice whoo-ohh-ohh-ohhs, but dammit that just isn’t enough anymore. Track two, ‘Stain Glass Shoes’ is a little rougher, a little more jagged, a little more ready to smash a bottle in your face, and better for it. Still, I’m not ready to totally dimiss this band, admittedly a judgement based wholly on the guitarist's name and the Idlewild support slot. I need to wrap this up in a nice cosy NME style. And here it is. The Star Spangles need more spangle if they're ever gonna be stars. Rachel T. ‘Which Of The Two Of Us IS Gonna Burn This House Down’ b/w ‘Stain Glass Shoes’ out 18th November on limited edition 7”. |
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