Review: The Morning Stars - You Can't Change The World

Creating a bit of a stir in the Canadian music scene of late have been 4-piece The Morning Stars. The band got together in 2004 as a vehicle for the songs of brothers Mars & Michael Ivic but have only just gotten round to putting out their debut "You Can't Change The World".

The band play an interesting mix of classic rock which has a definite British influence but mixed successfully with intelligent West Coast harmonies. Think Oasis or The Who having a love in with The Byrds and you're almost there.

Kicking things off is foot stomper "Hearts For The Living", its apparent from the first couple of minutes that these guys have an ear for writing a decent pop song. The mix of harmonies and atmospheric guitar in the chorus is so infectious it gets stuck in your head for hours. Things continue at a steady pace with "Wrong" with its New Order-esque intro it quickly transforms into a 3 minute power pop track that would have fit nicely onto the last Big Star album. Alex Chilton would be proud.

However, things take a turn for the middle of the road with the instantly forgetable title track "You Can't Change The World". Its pleasant enough but doesn't quite have the bite of the previous tracks. Things continue at a similar pace with "Steal My Love" and its not until the psychedelic stomp of "All Coming Down" until things pick up. Its like The Second Coming by The Stone Roses condensed into three and a half minutes.
The real highlight and centrepiece of the album though is "Don't Waste Time" with its stadium sized guitar riff and pounding drums its an instantly lovable track with some great production techniques and a melody that Bono would kill for if he wasn't too busy trying to save the world. A sure sign that there is greater things to come from these guys.

Unfortunately the last two tracks are pretty much throwaway. I found myself grating my teeth at the Liam Gallagher imitations on album closer "Fall". It has a nice sentiment "You've got to hold on / Tomorrow will be better" but comes across as one of those arse clenching ballads that get played over football highlights. A total Oasis rip off, akin to "Stop Crying Your Heart Out " or "Let There Be Love" and lets face it, even they don't do it very well.

All in all its a fairly enjoyable but ultimately patchy debut. Fans of no nonsense rock music should check them out. If they stick to what they're good at these guys could go places.


Links:
official website
myspace page

The track "Don't Waste Time" appears on this months Line Of Best Fit playlist which you can download from here.