Unfinished Dreaming

For a band steeped in Americana it was somehow fitting that The Stars Of Heaven should release their first single on July 4th.

The Stars reached for a songwriting literacy and guitar attack pitched somewhere between Gram Parsons and Big Star (not exactly the most profitable area in the mid-80s) and from that frantic 'Clothes Of Pride/All About You' debut on Eamonn Carr's Hotwire label, the compositional talents of Stephen Ryan and Stan Erraught blossomed, the band eventually being snapped up by Rough Trade and going on to release the acclaimed mini-album Sacred Heart Hotel, followed by Speak Slowly and the divine Before Holyhead EP before falling asunder as the decade turned.

Unfinished Dreaming really acts as a companion-piece to those officially-released works,comprising the aforementioned debut single, a host of radio sessions recorded for BBC and RTE and the studio demos for their unconsummated relationship with Mother Records. It's the latter (circulating for years as the Talkin' Bollocks With The Stars Of Heaven bootleg tape) which provide the real attraction of this collection, 'City On The Hill', 'Telescope', 'Ammonia Train', 'Poison River', 'So Far the Only', 'I Think I Know You Well Enough' and the wonderful 'Easier This Way' (recently re-recorded by Ryan on the new Revenants album) proving that the Stars were finally coming into their own.

Unfortunately, just as the songwriting was moving onto a new level and their notoriously erratic live form was coalescing into something approaching killer consistency, the off-stage pressures and frustrations did for them.

They don't come across as too bitter though. The liner comments for each of the 26 tracks here are extremely witty and entertaining - particularly those from drummer Bernard Walsh and bassist Pete O'Sullivan - and make much play of the band's regular forays into 'headless chicken' territory. Apart from Ryan and Erraught's tunes you also get versions of songs by Gram Parsons, The Seeds, Neil Young, Merle Haggard and Richard Thompson, tracks which let you know where The Stars Of Heaven were coming from and where they intended to go.

Given that their official studio output should easily fit onto a single CD, there's no reason why The Stars shouldn't be the subject of a comprehensive career overview, in much the same way as The Radiators' Cockles & Mussels. And knowing The Stars and what happened during their six years together, they'd probably call it Cock-Ups & Muddles.