The Starkillers
Close to the End
Hailing from Salt Lake City, let me introduce you to The Starkillers. This track, Close to the End, is the follow up to Are You Thinking of Me, an impressive pop/rock debut that came out in September of this year and already has close to 40,000 streams. This band is right in line with Walk the Moon and The Killers, creating a clean rock sound that should resonate with a wide audience. Here’s our review of Close to the End.
Nice guitar riff in E major at around 128 BPM kicks us off and starts up a positive vibe. Riff has just the right amount of dirt and compression on it - leaving room for more as the song progresses. Good space in the mix - solid drum tones - nice secondary riff comes in halfway through the intro to create a nice build. When the vocals drop, love the way the drum pattern changes to mark a new section of the song. Melody starts on the 5 for the first phrase, creating a huge space in the sonic landscape. Second phrase starts on the octave up - again, creating great space. Really dig the note choice from the bass player so far. It’s a 1 3- 6- 5 pattern (in many respects), and he wisely choose the 7 to pull that chord progression together with some nice tension. With the chorus, the chord progression continues but there’s a nice doubling in the chorus and a change in the rhythm patterns that shows these dudes take their compositions seriously. It would be really easy to smooth out all these parts and just repeat yourself, but you will always make your songs better if you pay attention to the minute details.
Nice breakdown after the first chorus that sets us up for an even quieter second verse to start. Dig the subtle changes to the bass line here. Like how the drop in intensity matches the line “Been a couple years since I last saw your face.” Lyrically, there’s a host of things he could be singing about - we know he’s claiming to be close to the end - but it is the edge of life (he mentions sirens , loosing all his possessions and pulling a gun), or the edge of love (because of his use of the word “darlin’”). This is one of the great things about rock as an art form - let’s leave the interpretation of the lyrics up to the user - I certainly have a theory as to what they are signing about. Solid clean ending to the track at under three minutes which is perfect for radio play.
Good work, Starkillers, and nice job with the aesthetics of your social media - you’ve got a solid theme going on. We look forward to what you’ll be doing next!
Check it out now!