Starflower: Ceasefires (KHY Suomen Musiikki, 2010)
Starflower has matured since the release of the debut album. Less cute and more beautiful. Less indiepop and more ambitious ballads. They are certainly standing closer to the edge of my comfort zone, but thanks to the quality of the songs, they don’t step out of bounds and Antti Ojala’s sweet and sentimental voice is still capable of carrying the songs to my heart. However, Starflower’s second album Ceasefires has one obvious flaw. There’s not much point in complaining about it, but the fact still is, that the album is way too long. At least I have major difficulties to stay interested through the whole thing even though I do really like the majority of the song material. This means that there’s a minor danger that such great songs like Light as a Friend and Run For Your Life just gets buried in the crowd. Ceasefires is still a fine album and quite a logical step forward. It doesn’t drive away the indie pop folks and hopefully brings new fans to the table.
