What’s not to like about the Flaming Stars? They’re a proper garage band that play late night rock and roll music. This is music about having to much to drink, getting into a fight, crashing out and coming round somewhere unknown, about feeling you’re heroic or poetic when you’re just boozed up. This is a band that seems to be believe it’s better to have loved and lost than… pretty much anything really. It’s dark street corner music, unexpectedly hitting the pavement music, genuine down-in-the-tube-station-at-midnight music. It’s about dusting yourself down, lighting your last fag and going back out into the night. Truly, this is the music you’re supposed to use the description ‘urban’ for. That there’s a song on here called Spilled Your Pint says it all.
I saw them once, lured partly by a flyer that read: ‘Arrive drunk. Get drunker.’ This seemed sound advice, so I did, and they were wonderful. Over the years they’ve put out a fair few records, all with pulp fiction style covers and usually showing signs of weak resistance to a punning title (I always liked Bring Me The Rest Of Alfredo Garcia). The new one’s a classic example of what they do: instantly recognisable, filled with their usual dark poetry and low, rumbling music that’s somehow taut and loose at the same time. I suspect that if they were American and hung around with the White Stripes, or if they were a bit younger and were mates of the Libertines, you’d have this record by now.
The record is out on Vinyl Japan UK, a label I always liked the name of, and the band's website is here - www.oslater.demon.co.uk.
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