Every so often maybe once a year if I'm lucky, I'll have an Oh Wow
musical experience.  This year it happened when I played the new Sarah
Borges and the Broken Singles album, The Stars Are Out.  I was so taken
with it that I immediately played it again all the way through.  And
then I played it twice more in the next two days.

The Stars Are Out simply is an album like they don't make anymore. Ten
tracks, half originals, half covers, and the covers include songs from
Smokey Robinson and NRBQ.  Most everything here sounds like it could
have been a single released in 1965 and I mean that in the best way
possible: middle period Beatles structure and lead guitar sounds and
most songs are less than four minutes long, some under three minutes. 
I'd love to list highlights from the album, except I think most
everything is a highlight.  Perhaps the one exception to all this is
the last cut, Symphony, which sounds like it's from 1975, good but
perhaps a bit out of place with the rest of the material.

Although Sarah has been around for about five years now, she has been
known as an alt country act.  So this album seemed to come out of left
field.  But my Mom always says that you can't argue with success.  So,
Mom, I'm not arguing.  The Stars Are Out is a flat out success.

My only gripe is that Sarah is from Boston and the closest she's coming
to the neighborhood anytime soon is Philadelphia.  But be sure when she
hits this area I'll be there.

–Eliot Wagner