Love Is Here

Love Is Here is the debut studio album by rock band Starsailor, released on 8 October 2001 by Chrysalis Records.

After finalising their line-up, a positive review from NME started a bidding war between record labels that eventually saw the band sign to EMI.

Love Is Here features acoustic guitars accompanied by gentle piano chords, earning it comparisons to the albums Parachutes (2000) by Coldplay, and The Invisible Band (2001) by Travis.

"Poor Misguided Fool" was released as a single on 18 March 2002, which was promoted with a US trek as part of the MTV Campus Invasion tour.

The album charted at number two in the UK, while also reaching the top 40 in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, and Scotland.

[1][5] The writer posted a highly positive review for one of the shows, which in turn started a bidding war between record labels.

[5] Mark Collen, the managing director of EMI imprint Chrysalis Records, had witnessed one of the shows, and expressed interest only halfway through the opening song of the set.

[13] The album sees acoustic guitars matched with gentle piano chords, with Walsh's vocals recalling Jeff Buckley, and Richard Ashcroft of the Verve.

[15][16] Discussing the title, Walsh said the phrase acted as the album's theme, intending it to be "uplifting and positive, because everything around at the moment seems to have quite a cynical edge".

[17][18] The Tindersticks-esque "Poor Misguided Fool" starts with a New Order-indebted intro section, and continues with a strumming pattern in the vein of "Coffee & TV" (1999) by Blur.

[38][39][40] On 25 July 2001, Love Is Here was announced for release in less than three months' time, and the album's track listing was posted online.

[45] The band played a small number of US shows prior to an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien; "Lullaby" was released as a single on 10 December 2001.

[50] Love Is Here was released in the US on 8 January 2002, which was promoted with a full tour of that territory supporting the Charlatans throughout the month, and an appearance on The David Letterman Show and Saturday Night Live.

[61] AllMusic reviewer MacKenzie Wilson wrote that while the band was not as "polished as its counterparts", the album stood as a "beautiful piece of work".

[62] In a review for Entertainment Weekly, David Browne saw the band as being "more sensitive and gracefully shambolic" than their contemporaries "thanks to [the] overheated, self-absorbed" Walsh, as well as the "tumbling, rustic-countryside beauty of their music".

[64] Victoria Segal of NME commended the band for making an album of "real emotional depth", with "an alluring assurance that means that even at its most vulnerable [...] there's an edge that pushes them way beyond the feathery, big-eyed, hatchling indie of Coldplay".

[35] The Guardian writer John Aizlewood referred to the band as being "both throwback and peek into the future", highlighting Westhead's "strident" piano parts and Walsh's "hyperventilating near-falsetto", making it sound like an "intricately produced tempest of an album".

[65] Pitchfork contributor Christopher Dare complimented Osborne for being able to "craft a truly special sound here, lush and yet conveying an acoustic atmosphere".

[19] Jenny Eliscu of Rolling Stone said Walsh's "willowy-falsetto" enhanced some of the songs; however, it was a "shame his vocals invite close listening, because the lyrics tend to be pretty silly, full of mock profundities".

[68] Blender's David Quantick said that if the album had a fault, it was due to the "slightly hand-wringing lyrics, which, if not overwrought, are certainly pretty darned wrought.