Album Review: The Starry Field - Back On The Milks

8 April 2013 | 3:35 pm | Justine Keating

What Myers deems as a potential overshare makes for a loveably real album – one that has been constructed with a brilliant cautiousness.

Ex-The Middle East member Mark Myers has spent a decade working as a producer, but the release of his debut album Back On The Milks sees him revealing himself as a capable songwriter with his solo project The Starry Field. Myers doesn't hold back one bit; the album is a collection of alt.country (and occasionally synth-pop) songs that touch on deeply personal and genuine experiences of love, loss and everything in between. Myers sings with a charming candour; there's a slight naivety to his simple songwriting, but this only exemplifies his sincerity. “Are you ever going home” is repeated with a gentle force in the short and sparse second track Holbrook. It's not overly complex – and with Myers' attention to detail, it really doesn't need to be. The simplicity of his lyrics are well-suited to the soft accompaniment of a drumbeat that runs for no longer than 20 seconds at a time, and the lone twinkle of an off-handed guitar that rings over the top of an unchanging acoustic melody.

As the instrumentation and production thickens, Myers keeps his tunes delightfully honest. All Of My Love is one of the more upbeat songs on the album, but (arguably) one of the most emotional. Not emotional in the same way that the more poetic, synth-layered Baby I'm A Car Crash is: Myers counteracts rich instrumentation by downplaying his insecurities and overwhelming love with an air of whimsy.

What Myers deems as a potential overshare makes for a loveably real album – one that has been constructed with a brilliant cautiousness.