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Rating: The Milky Way, a dark path stretching through the winding mazes of the night, a caravan of stars from the indefinite to the unknown. How many times has Steve Kilbey on sultry Australian nights lifted his gaze to count the stars, and how many times has he paused on the one that left the bright night universe to rest in an unknown basin of the immense ocean.
Starfish was the pinnacle of the Church's parabola, the song of the sirens. Yet, in the early days, it was deemed an unadventurous and saccharine album by detractors and early fans, accustomed to the strange and original formula of previous works, pop infused with traditional and canonical psychedelia, Byrds school, if you will. A quick and rash judgment leads to conclusions as easy as they are wrong. This album dispensed a unique and original alchemy to pop music, enriching the list of precious works that came from distant Australia, which lived its golden age in the eighties with Died Pretty, the Birthday Party and Nick Cave, Radio Birdman, and many others. Apparently linear and simple in its structure, Starfish is an unintelligible work that unfolds little by little, listen after listen. The delightful and perpetually melancholic pop woven by Peter Koppes' guitar (supported by Marty Willson-Piper's second guitar and the skilled Nick Ward on drums) sways gracefully over Kilbey's lyrics, a perfect, mutual understanding running on a wire of unique vibrations, of sensual and spiritual anxieties with high expressive values.
Incommunicability and immense sidereal spaces without the possibility of meeting, intersecting in the sinister riffs of "Destination" open the gates of heaven, projecting us towards the celestial path that we, eighties teenagers, traversed in our thoughts, in the darkness of our rooms, on the beach or in the countryside, in company or accompanied only by notes and words, imprisoned and gently funneled, unable to react, "something white and sparkling brings you here, despite your destination, under the Milky Way tonight." "Under The Milky Way" is more than a song, it is a dimension, an emotional state, a cornerstone of the entire '80s musical panorama, enchanting in its precious areas and original in the bagpipe-effect guitar solo. Kilbey pours warmth, pacifying us with beguiling infusions of words despite narrating of dirty money ("Blood Money") and emotional troubles ("Lost"), fine pop drenched in melancholy. "The song I prefer is the cry of the swift, because I associate it with summer," writes Trevor Cox. Starfish is, for me, a sonorous, eloquent representation of autumn and the autumns of my soul. It is extremely easy to lose oneself, find oneself, wander aimlessly ("North, South, East and West") in the infinite shores of this work, and when the atmospheres turn toward more colorful and festive horizons ("Spark," "Antenna," "A New Season"), twilight is just around the corner in the sharp lyrics of the hypnotic and fascinating ride named "Reptile." "Hotel Womb" closes the album quietly and without fanfare, just like all things simply perfect in their small imperfections, those we carefully store on our shelves, those hidden in a remote, unspecified point of the ocean.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Destination (05:52)
Far below the surface, where the women sway
Green shadows greet another day
Drowned for the moment, on an empty ocean bed
And I cannot lift my head
Late for an appointment, clothes everywhere
I cannot find my memory anywhere
Ah disappointment just doesn't care
Off in the distance just waiting there
Take back her keys, what shall we do today
Maybe a little lunch down at the ghost cafe
Sand in my sandals, my blood feels like red wine
They say, hey everything will work out fine
02 Under the Milky Way (04:58)
Sometimes when this place gets kind of empty
Sound of their breath fades with the light
I think about the loveless fascination
Under the Milky Way tonight
Lower the curtain down in Memphis
Lower the curtain down all right
I got no time for private consultation
Under the Milky Way tonight
Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find
Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find
And it's something quite peculiar
Something that's shimmering and white
Leads you here despite your destination
Under the Milky Way tonight
(Chorus)
Under the Milky Way tonight
04 Lost (04:48)
Sometimes I'm wondering under prehistoric skies.
I feel it's all beginning right before my eyes.
I must go back, reexamine my love.
Here she comes with the penetrated stare.
I don't know when, but I wish I knew where.
Quick calculation, there's not nearly enough.
Because we're lost, because we're lost.
Cold desert stars, feel them sparkle and frost,
They are so lost.
Follow her down to worship some god.
Who never speaks to me, I wonder if that's odd.
Then he says you're never listening.
The pursuit of adulation is your butter and your bread.
It's an exquisite corpse and its lips are red
And its teeth are glistening.
But you are lost, but you are lost.
Now hang up 'cause the lines are all crossed,
You are so lost.
If you're alone and you're feeling blue,
Everyone in Persia probably feels like that too.
I just hope they don't believe like you do.
Here she comes with her unforgiving web.
Almost forever I've been drinking these dregs.
It must be time to change our brew, cruel, view.
Before we're lost, before we're lost.
Look at the map, add up the cost,
Before we're lost.
06 Spark (03:45)
I'm saturated. I'm wet with your tears, you spill so easily.
In reflection I'll see you again.
Approach me, soak me.
Faith, faith, breathe.
'Cause it's here, it's where the air is clear,
Where far off things could be quite near.
No repairs are needed, just a spark.
I'm interested, you've always been a subject, that I could learn.
Splendid hills, unconquerable mountains.
Climb, don't ever turn back.
Seed, seed, grow.
(chorus)
(Repeat first verse and chorus)
07 Antenna (03:50)
Why do you always wrongly assume
That you're so well aware of what's happening there,
Right here in this room?
You're just an antenna, you're just a wire.
There's a thousand tongues wagging in your ears tonight,
And you turn around and you call me a liar.
Lightly babe, oh the fine lights cannot find you.
She stay out my way, it's the pulse I am aligned to.
And everything you say, you'll need that breath one day.
Well, you're just an antenna, you're just a code.
You translate like a book, the fuses all cook.
You eat humble pie and it tastes of the road.
Lightly babe, oh the fine lights cannot find you.
She say, that's the way, that's the fate I am resigned to.
And everything you say, you'll need that breath one day.
You're just an antenna, you're just a gauge.
You disturb my slumber and round up the numbers
And put them inside your velvety cage.
Lightly babe, oh the fine lights cannot find you.
She say, make my day, and the sunlight will not blind you.
Lightly babe, oh the fine lights cannot find you.
I may never pray to the fortune that's behind you.
08 Reptile (04:56)
Too dangerous to keep.
Too feeble to let go.
And you want to bite the hand.
Should have stopped this long ago.
Go now, you've been set free.
Another month or so you'll be gorging on me ("poisoning me" on 2nd and 3rd times)
With your lovely smile.
I see you slither away with your skin and your tail,
Your flickering tongue and your rattling scales
Like a real reptile.
Had you coiled around my arm.
How could you ever know
How I loved your diamond eyes?
But that was long ago. (Chorus)
And I should have believed Eve.
She said we had to blow.
She was the apple of my eye.
It wasn't long ago. (Chorus)
10 Hotel Womb (05:40)
Volcano pierce the air, ashes block out the sun.
Down in the lair, well I met her there
With a price for everyone.
I paid eighty dollars for this wedding ring,
I couldn't take it off if I tried.
And the cactus sure tastes strangely sweet
As it goes down inside
I dream I'm safe in my hotel womb.
Soft and soul made, it's a wonderful room.
I wish I'm back in my hotel womb.
Slip through the crack, to that wonderful room.
Sudden voltage in the night, with a rainforest girl.
As we float downstream to the Amazon River
Where the black waters swirl.
I say, why are you people wearing those masks?
I say, can we be reconciled?
She says the mother of the storm has to roam the sky
Searching for her child. (Chorus)
Morning comes at last, and she's lying by my side.
She's got the face of the widow who keeps following me
And the body of my bride.
I say, why are those buildings swaying like trees?
I say, can we stop for a while?
She says, can't you hear the city that's hidden in there?
It's just another mile.
(Chorus)
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Other reviews
By Mariaelena
"'Under The Milky Way' is their masterpiece, a melodic and velvety dream of disproportionate dimension."
"Starfish embraces unique atmospheres and every track is remarkable, positively coloring the ’80s with purple pop-psychedelic sounds."
