Utah-based band, The Starkillers, are back with their latest single, Here With You, and we’ve been taking a listen here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today.
We’ve previously reviewed Close To The End and Are You Thinking Of Me from The Starkillers. All of these tracks are based around the theme of the cycle of a toxic relationship and all the stages you find yourself going through.
Here With You is a slightly more chilled and mellow sound to previous tracks, and explores the feeling that you have with someone and everything just seems to click. It is about the early stages where everything feels right and you never want to leave.
Starting with some glorious finger-picked guitar and a very gentle distant percussion (brushed snare perhaps?), Here With You makes you feel comfortable. The vocals are warm and intimate at the start of the song and as the first verse builds, the snare leads the way. At the end of the first verse, a guitar melody follows the vocal line of the verse with a little instrumental section.
Frontman, Jon Owen, has an exceptionally versatile and passionate voice which sounds effortless in his delivery. As the song progresses, your ears are treated to more and more power, gravel and rockiness from the lead vocal. The line “wanna be here with you” which is sung unaccompanied is absolutely spine-tinglingly world-class.
There’s a certain Bon Jovi feel to Here With You. The powerful rock voice and the layered harmony “woah” vocals after the “wanna be here with you” line all point to this being a track which would sit well on a 90s rock playlist.
Ideas from our ears
A hi-pass filter at 35Hz followed by a small low shelf cut set around 200Hz and an additional small cut at around 70Hz would balance out the low end against the rest of the track. A boost centred around 10kHz would increase the brightness and help with the overall sound balance. Finally, a light compressor/limiter and maybe ~5dB of make-up gain would increase the warmth in the track as well as raising the volume. As always, these are just a few ideas from our ears.
Final thoughts
For fans of 90s rock, you simply cannot go wrong with this track. The Starkillers are making some magnificent music at the moment and we’re excited to follow their journey.