Track List

White Lies, Blue Tears

If I Can Ever Get It Back Again

Whiskey and You

I Can't Stand To Be Alone

Cocaine Parties

The Daydreamer

When I'm All The Way Down

The

I'll Play Angel

Bars and Stone

Time

This World Just Won't Leave You Alone

www.starroom.com

The Star Room Boys fit easily into the latter category. This isn't music for the wide eyed innocence of the belly button beat box country crowd. The Star Room Boys make music for those of us that have been around the block a few times, with themes that revolve around heartache, whiskey, despair, heartache, contemplating the pointlessness of life, whiskey, heartache, hitting rock bottom, loss, and some more heartache. Their songs are done with the world weary ache, that only someone who's lived these songs, can convey.

While they are usually described as an "alt-country" or "Americana" band, these boys are really all out neo-traditionalists, right down to their core- just an edgier, more stripped down, unpolished version, than the crop of Music Row neo  traditionalists.

Formed in 1995, this Athens, Georgia band consists of founder Dave Parr, the band's singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist, Bob Fernandez on drums, John McMahon on bass, and two of the finest instrumentalists on the scene- Philip McArdle on guitar and Johnny Neff on pedal steel.

This World Just Won't Leave You Alone, is The Star Room Boys' sophmore follow-up to it's widely acclaimed debut CD, Why Do Lonely Men And Women Want To Break Each Other's Hearts? This World finds Dave continuing to write songs that find their way deep inside, as he reaches way down probing the most gutwrenching of human emotions. His vocals, a bit ragged and comfortably "lived in", can conjure up images of Haggard and Jones, not in vocal similarities, but in conveying emotion. He never takes it over the top in over-wrought excess, but rather, relies on a more subtle, understated approach, perfectly befitting his songs. The band is tight and focused, and as with Dave's vocals, never overplay their hand.

This is not to say the the melancholy subject matter doesn't make for some tunes that can most definitely fill the dance floor. Dave writes irresistable melodies that wrap around his songs, from the uptempo honky tonker "Daydreamer" to the mid-tempo shuffles of "White Lies, Blue Tears", "I Can't Stand To Be Alone", and "Time" to the haunting waltzes of  "Whiskey And You", "When I'm all The Way Down" and the stellar title track, ""This World Just Won't Leave You Alone."

At the same time, these songs definitely fill the bill if you're looking to nurse your troubles, particularly "This World Just Won't Leave You Alone", "Cocaine Parties", and "I'll Play Angel." Dave provides plenty of chances to sit back and just reflect, as on the stone country weepers, "The 4:05", "Bars And Stone" and "If I Can Get It Back Again." Nor surprisingly, with all this high lonesome pain and heartache, do the songs come off as being depressing, but more like a medicine that soothes the aching soul.

The Star Room Boys are the kind of band you pray for when you walk into a honky tonk or bar, looking to drown your sorrows, (or hope they're at least playing on the jukebox). This is one of those CDs that you'll pull out as you're sitting in the in the wee hours just before dawn reflecting, when you've hit those bumps on the road of life. These songs jump off the CD and wrap their arm around you, saying, "hey, I know just how you're feeling", while Dave's voice, as warm and comforting as a shot of Jack Daniels, let's you know you're not alone.

A good strong shot of The Star Room Boys brand of southern comfort, is sure to cure what ails the aching soul.

AnnMarie Harrington Take Country Back May 2002