Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release year: 2005
Production: Fabrizio Grossi
Album length: 52.27 min.
Genre: AOR / Melodic Rock
Starbreaker is an international project made up of superb musicians. I’ll say it right off the bat: this self-titled debut is a real standout in hard rock today, when the market is clogged with a hail of albums that are faceless, average clones of the best.
Tony Harnell’s vocals (ex-TNT) sit front and center, and the first thing worth noting is that this isn’t the typical record you’d expect from a TNT singer. Compared to the production on the TNT albums with Harnell at the mic, Starbreaker sounds way more aggressive and rawer, in other words, less tuned for the wider mainstream audience. The credit goes to the album’s producer and Starbreaker bassist Fabrizio Grossi, who has worked with big names like Glenn Hughes, Dave Navarro and House Of Lords. He also caught Starbreaker’s pulse perfectly on tape! And the band still stays loyal to melody throughout.
A hugely important piece of the puzzle is guitarist Magnus Karlsson (Last Tribe, Allen/Lande), and all I can do is repeat that he was born to write and play in this kind of company. The Scandinavian has a sharp, cutting riff tone, and the raw production smudges it just slightly, so all the riffing sounds a touch more modern, with a hint of exciting “groove”. Meanwhile he never fails to deliver his superior feel for laying down impressively crafted, ultra-melodic solos that fit snugly into every single song.
The main element pulling the album away from hard rock clichés, though, is John Macaluso. This excellent drummer is a top-class instrumentalist who has played with Y.J. Malmsteen and the legendary Riot, and he can also boast two great albums released under the banner of the unforgettable Ark project. Macaluso and Harnell go way back, to the TNT album “Realised Fantasies” (1992), where Macaluso played drums. Macaluso is the factor that brings in the progressive touch: the riffs get masterfully built up in the transitions with colorful, witty rolls, and the variety of his drum work adds an element of unpredictability to the album, which is a real rarity in hard rock, like looking for a needle in a haystack. And when such a thing does exist, it naturally lifts the quality above the average right away! The album’s only instrumental, Dragonfly, is exactly the reminder of what Macaluso meant to Ark too, a band that sadly fell apart too soon. It brushes up against what Macaluso did with Ark. Genre-wise the track belongs to progressive metal and it’s crystal clear on that front. It’s a moment of jerky jamming that catapults the dynamics of the whole album to an even higher level! And it’s incredible how the pre-chorus of the closing Save Yourself captures once more the magic of the progressive, which lavishly adorned Ark.
This album is the definitive standout of the 2005 hard rock scene, and it stretches that time frame without any trouble, over the upper and lower limits, maybe even across a whole decade. It’s a seriously compact CD, consistently high in quality from the first second to the last. That means there isn’t a single “filler” on the album eating up minutes and gnawing at your ears and the association cortex of your brain, and not one bad song that could emotionally cool you off on this record. Die For You, which opens the album, starts with a Hindu celebration motif that is suddenly shot through by a punchy riff, and the album takes off at high voltage that doesn’t let up until the very end! The variety of the songs guarantees the album’s high dynamics, while the personal confession in the “minor-key” garb of the melodies guarantees the drama and, as a result, the high atmosphere. It’s a classically built hard rock album, but it stands out thanks above all to a wonderful pinch of experimentation, witty ideas, and a lively, “groovy” production that lifts the whole picture, one in which the word cliché gets completely lost. You can’t single out any highlights. The songs are all on an equal level, and in that respect the album is truly flawless. Given how busy the musicians involved are anyway, the only question that comes up is about the follow-up to this rock gem. An album that simply bursts and bubbles all over with released creative energy!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.5 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Die For You
2. Lies
3. Break My Bones
4. Crushed
5. Days Of Confusion
6. Transparent
7. Light At The End Of The World
8. Cradle To The Grave
9. Underneath A Falling Sky
10. Turn It Off
11. Dragonfly (instrumental)
12. Save Yourself
Lineup:
Tony Harnell – vocals
Magnus Karlsson – guitar, keyboards
Fabrizio Grossi – bass guitar, sampler
John Macaluso – drums
