Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Starchild
Label: Self-released
Release: 2014
Runtime: 60:30
Rating: 4.5/5
Starchild are a new heavy metal outfit from Germany, built around a core of seriously experienced musical talent and led by the exceptional Sandro Giampietro, a superb guitarist, vocalist and »songwriter«. Maybe not a name that rings a bell for everyone, but if you follow the German heavy metal and power metal scene, he’s anything but unimportant. Sandro co-wrote the material on the solo albums of former Helloween singer Michael Kiske, where he also played guitar, he took part in the creative process on both Unisonic albums, and he worked on the Place Vendome project. For the Starchild lineup, Sandro picked a tried-and-tested rhythm section of two excellent German musicians. The bass is wielded by true scene veteran Jens Becker (Grave DIgger, ex-Running Wild), who worked with Sandro on the Zillion project, while on drums Michael Ehre joined Starchild, who is also the new drummer of the Hamburg power metal veterans Gamma Ray. And as the cherry on top, the guys called in a Russian musician who goes by the stage name Esmeralda, and who contributed electric violin.
And the result? The 13 tracks on the band’s self-titled debut show that they took shape over a fairly long stretch of time. The songs are brilliantly picked and finely detailed. From the first second to the last. The peaks are pushed into hooky, grabby chorus melodies, the build-up of atmosphere from verse into chorus is graded just right and works incredibly well. The songs are seasoned with a generous helping of juicy guitar solos and bridge sections, where within the generally compact framework of the tracks the band repeatedly and effectively flips the mood. Sandro’s vocals are a kind of operatic spin on Bruce Dickinson. That element flares up a few times on the album with such intensity (especially in the choruses) that moments on »Starchild« come close even to Bruce Dickinson’s solo career around the time of the »Accident of Birth« (1997) album. Want an example? Check out the stellar choruses of Thief of a Crown, Eyes of a History, or Morningstar. Besides the influences of Iron Maiden and Bruce Dickinson (solo), the album also carries traces of Judas Priest, which the German school of metal has always been generously fond of (Reaching the Land). In moments like these, Starchild start to pull toward German bands like Unisonic, Gamma Ray and even Iron Savior. In the old German school of metal, it hits especially hard in the track Visions, whose chorus ending pulls toward the chorus ending of the Gamma Ray track Dethrone Tyranny. The closing marcher Underwaterworld, built on ultra-torpedoed double bass drum pedals, also definitely belongs in the bundle of typical German metal school tracks.
All in all, Starchild have a dark production. They’re dark, and along with the jagged, cranked-up intensity of all the instrumentation, that makes for an excellent, classically carved heavy metal album inspired by the pioneering work of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Sandro’s commanding vocals come across as theatrical and are in a dominant stalk-the-prey stance throughout. »Starchild« is an album that doesn’t for a second risk sinking into the kindergarten melodies of the Edguy type, and instead prefers to keep the songs developing in a minor key, which occasionally results in an especially theatrically gloomy atmosphere (Atalya).
»Starchild« has a poisonously well-crafted feel for structuring middle eight passages. In the middle sections the band shows off little masterpieces of big talent, as the building blocks of the music develop an extraordinary mutual awareness, while the band keeps the arrangements of the songs tight and compact throughout. The sense of musicality on this album is served up perfectly!
Even if Starchild aren’t bringing a musical revolution, they’re bringing a band to the scene that you can’t possibly shove into the revivalism bin, but rather one that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best-known representatives of the German heavy metal school of the eighties. So. If you’re a fan of Gamma Ray, especially Kiske-era Helloween, Unisonic and Iron Savior, and above all a fan of the fantasy world that inspires Kai Hansen, the only member of all four of those lineups, then in Starchild you’ll find a new band that you absolutely have to add to your list of heavy metal favorites. The debut gave us 13 tracks and an intro. Not a single one of them wastes a minute. They all have an extraordinarily well-crafted form and the grabby charisma of lead motifs that, despite the narrow genre definition Starchild belong to, string together an exceptionally dynamic album, bursting with a great combination of catchy, high-octane guitar phrases, pompous anthemic grandeur and highly vibrant moods. The album is dressed in a full-blooded melodic payoff, under the brilliant »conductor’s« baton of Sandro Giampetro, who actually thought of everything while it was being made.
Lineup
Sandro Giampietro – vocals, guitar
Jens Becker – bass
Michael Ehré – drums
Esmeralda – electric violin
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Michael Kiske – vocal duets
iHelge Schneider – organ
Production
Sandro Giampietro
Track list
01. Starchild Theme
02. Starchild
03. It’s My Race
04. Still My Planet
05. Eyes of History
06. Thief of the Crown
07. Reaching the Land
08. Black and White Forever
09. Morningstar
10. Forever
11. Visions
12. Runner
13. Atalya
14. Underwaterworld
