Artist: Whitestarr
Album: Luv Machine
Label: Contango Records
Tracks: 13
Review By: Jacob Gehman

I think in most people’s life something significant happens to them which radically alters their perception and creates their life goals. For example, a teenage girl babysitting her neighbor’s kids and seeing what a delight it is to be around children and suddenly realizing that all she wants to be is a mom. Or a young boy watching Billy Graham on television and becoming a preacher.

Now lets say a group of guys are at a rock n roll concert with people going wild, probably screaming. Then all of a sudden the band turns things down a few notches, people stop moving, and—get this!—bring out their cigarette lighters, flick them on, and all of a sudden the stadium is a sea of alive light. That’s some powerful stuff, and whether it happened or not, could easily effect a group of guys to where all they wanted from life was to make people break out their lighters.

Their labor of love would be very much like “Luv Machine,” the first album from Whitestarr. Their cd is full of the sort of soft rock songs hand crafted to inspire lighters and swaying. In fact, they imply as much on their first track, which is a brief, introductory serenade which ends with the alleged sound of lighters flicking on. Throughout the entire cd you can feel the singer imagining that he is being caressed by the soft heat of thousands of lighters spread out in front of him.

Which is all fine and dandy if you’re trying to be Michael Bolton, however, for a band that looks like Andrew W.K. and is trying to appeal to the rock crowd, it is a grievous sin to actually neglect to rock. Song after song of lighter-friendly almost-rock is anti-climatic to say the least.

As tedious as song after song of lighter rock is, you can’t accuse Whitestarr of not knowing how to craft a catchy song. They’re not so good that I can just look past their single-mindedness, but I could see someone who has really wanted an album of lighter-friendly anthems to dig this cd.