release date: Feb. 16, 1988
format: vinyl / 2 cd (2005 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,54]
producer: Greg Ladanyi, Waddy Wachtel & The Church
label: Arista Records - nationality: Australia
Track highlights: 1. "Destination" - 2. "Under the Milky Way" - 4. "Lost" - 6. "Spark" - 8. "Reptile"
5th studio album by The Church following a little more than two years after Heyday (Nov. '85) and released on Mushroom in Australia and Arista Records for international releases. Apparently, "Starfish" was Kilbey's nickname for Donette Thayer [guitarist in the band Game Theory, 1986-89], with whom he partly formed the music project Hex in '88 and also paired with - while at the same time still pairing with Karin Jansson.
According to Steve Kilbey the recordings for the album were a rather negative experience, where the band had wanted to make an album that sounded more like live recordings - approaching something immediate and present, but Kilbey, who was the only granted access to the producer's room, was informed that they only did what they were hired to do, and instead, the group was left with an album sounding very different from what they had wanted. At yes, the sound is far from live atmosphere and instead it's been created with grandiose and a voluminous sound. Still, the reception of the album was positive among critics and it sold quite well. Starfish landed at number #11 on the Australian charts and entered top 50 at number #41 in the US where it's still seen as the band's commercial breakthrough.
"Under the Milky Way", written by Kilbey and girlfriend Karin Jansson, was released as the first single and quickly became an international hit peaking at No. #2 on the US mainstream singles chart, the Billboard Hot 100. The track earned the band the "Single of the Year" award with the Australian ARIA Music Awards in 1989, and in 2008 the song was voted Best Australian Song of the past twenty years by readers of The Weekend Australian Magazine. "Reptile" followed as the second single and did less well, and the final single from the album "Destination" simply failed to chart, but the album is the only from The Church to achieve Gold status (selling more than 500,000 copies) in USA. Despite the success which followed the album release, Kilbey has criticized it for being lifeless and sterile.
In 2005, the album was released in a remastered version as a 2-disc Deluxe Edition on EMI Music Australia with a bonus CD containing twelve tracks, seven of which are bonus material (released in 1991 on the compilation A Quick Smoke at Spot's: Archives 1986-1990), three are acoustic versions of tracks from the original album, and the last two tracks were previously released as B-side material on the Australian 12'' single Under the Milky Way.
The front cover shows the four band members, top left: Richard Ploog, Steve Kilbey, Marty Wilson-Piper, and Peter Koppes.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]
