Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Starship
Label: Loud & Proud Records
Release date: 23.09.2013
Runtime: 46:49
Rating: 4.5/5
After 24 years! A new Starship album! Can you believe it? Starship with Mickey Thomas, the lead voice on killer hits like Jane (Jeferson Starship), Layin’ It On The Line (Jefferson Starship), No Way Out (Jefferson Starship), and then We Built this City (Starship) and Sara (Starship). First things first: the wait was totally worth it. This album is excellent, and the Starship name stands behind it with full credibility! Fans of both Starship and Jefferson Starship will be thrilled. The record is a great mix of sharp ideas, delivering polished, self-contained songs with a clearly defined character. »Loveless Fascination« is a melting pot of several genres, woven together beautifully into the band’s recognizable art rock calling card, in which that refined pop sentiment once again can’t be missed.
Thomas fussed over every last hair on this album. He wanted it perfect. And you can feel it. It’s not a perfect album, but the man threw every creative force he had at getting as close as possible. That’s why the record keeps rewarding the listener with its studio polish, its sonic character and its compositional strengths. With it, Starship close their evolutionary circle and return to a retro sound, let’s just say an organic-sounding tone, the trademark of album production in the seventies. Thomas has briefly flirted with elements of his solo studio album »As Long as You Love Me« (1976), as well as the work he left behind in the seventies as a member of the Elvin Bishop Band!
Thomas is a perfectionist, so he works with perfectionists. For the final polish he brought in seasoned multi-instrumentalist and producer Jeff Pilson (Foreigner), and the pairing has, in the end, produced an album that even shares traits with Foreigner’s recent record »Can’t Slow Down« (2009). You can hear it not just in the production, with its remarkable, natural-sounding sonic landscape that brings »Loveless Fascination« and that last Foreigner album close together at several points, but also in individual arrangement choices. The opener It’s Not The Same As Love makes that clear right away.
Despite the over-the-top bombast on show in the choruses (the excellent title track definitely stands out here), the strength of this album lies in the organic weight I mentioned, in the strong tonal contrasts between the building blocks of the sound. They’ve struck a subtle balance by cleverly coloring the lead melodies and adding choir harmonies in the vein of the greatest masters, and with real class. The warm blanket of Hammond organ feels completely natural on this album. Especially in the dreamy What Did I Ever Do?, where it’s joined by a contrasting »slide« guitar line. The slide, topped with a vibrant chorus effect, even adds a pinch of psychedelia to the song.
Mickey Thomas remains a fantastic vocalist! His expressive range ripens like wine. He gets sweeter with the years. His delivery has a refined feel for adding touches of improvised »bending« to the lead melodies, plus a convincing way of carrying the power from the middle register up to the highest. Thomas simply never runs out of breath! The vocal performance is the main engine of the album, driving its dynamic flow and lining up colorful contrasts between the moods it captures.
This is an excellent art rock document, delivered to the masses after twenty-four years by its great debtor, Mickey Thomas. Routine, experience and a clear musical vision! »They built a dream and nothing can stop them,« to borrow a line from the recent rock history that Starship helped write. This album is a great start to a new chapter for Mickey Thomas. A record that, with its sense of finish and the strong, tangible substance of every song, never stops impressing. From start to finish. A complete fascination you can enjoy whether you only let the very best into your ears or you’re a less demanding listener, because the album is a great blend of rock energy and a well-balanced, refined feel for big melodies! Something Mickey Thomas has always carried inside him, and the little tip of the scale that has always made the music of Starship (and Jefferson Starship too) so captivating. The tight, intricate arrangement craftsmanship is still right where it belongs! It just sounds even more mature in 2013, in the way it comes through the music.
Lineup
Mickey Thomas – vocals, backing vocals
Stephanie Calvert – vocals, backing vocals
John Roth – guitar, backing vocals
Phil Bennett – keyboards, backing vocals
Jeff Adams – bass guitar, backing vocals
Darrell Verdusco – drums
Production
Jeff Pilson & Mickey Thomas
Tracklist
01. It’s Not The Same As Love
02. How Do You Sleep
03. Loveless Fascination
04. What Did I Ever Do
05. Technicolor Black And White
06. Where Did We Go Wrong
07. Nothing Can Keep Me From You
08. How Will I Get By
09. You Never Know
10. You Deny Me
