A piece of news that was met with profound sorrow was that of the death of synthwave artist Starcadian, aka George Smaragidis following a traffic accident riding his e-Bike. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Starcadian was a once in a generation talent. His music was built on one simple foundation: “I make ear movies.”
A visual artist by day and synth juggernaut by night (literally) he was a real synaesthete: the aural and visual blending with such ease and such force it tickled your brain in places you never thought existed. His music transcended the usual confines of the medium, his album covers resembling movie posters, each lyric concealing yet revealing another layer of his narrative.
Starcadian.
For 80s kids who grew up intentionally blurring the line between our reality and the fantasy realms of Star Wars, The Dark Crystal, or Saturday morning cartoons (his EP Saturdaze a testament to that) Starcadian was just a given. Once you heard his sincere yet epic tunes, that was it. There was no going back. If there was ever a musician to capture the feeling of venturing beyond the stars and coming back in time for supper, it was Starcadian.
His epic opener to 2017’s Midnight Signals, Interspace, tumbling arppegios taking flight over hard hip hop beats and robot vocals was emblematic of his limitless ambition, matched by his natural aptitude for songwriting. All his songs made me feel like being a kid again, waking up on a weekend morning holding nothing but promise and wonder. Few artists could do that. The world is poorer without him in it. Vale, friend. May you rest among the stars.
Sunburst - Manifesto
Inner Wound Recordings (2024)
Imagine Roy Khan (ex-Kamelot, Conception) joined Symphony X. That’s it. That’s the review.
This may be a jest, but it really is the collision of high gothic fantasy and high nerd fantasy metal we never asked for but glad exists. The funny thing is, despite being a Greek band they crib from two American acts pretending to be very European. Down to the neo-baroque, orchestral-led Thomas Youngblood/Michael Romeo-isms permeating tracks like Nocturne, getting back to basic wallop and chug prog pioneered by Queensryche all those years ago (also American!) heard on pared back tracks like Hollow Lies. If you like both bands you’ll love this without reserve; the relative freshness of most of this LP might convert a few recent power metal dropouts too.
Hamferð - Men Guðs hond er sterk
Metal Blade (2024)
Written in ode to a survivor of a doomed Faroese whaling crew, Men Guðs hond er sterk, or But God’s hand is strong, begins with the roiling waves crushing all who dare traverse it in Ábær, vocalist Jon Aldara (Iotunn, Barren Earth) spitting hate at thee in bloodcurdling screams and pallbearing cleans. It’s funeral doom for sure, though at times it’s sparse and bleak and minimalistic, like Primordial playing with a box and an acoustic after getting cleaned out by thieves. (c.f. Marrusorg.) Even the grizzled old man reciting the tale (in Faroese) on the five minute closer is gripping right ‘til the very end.
Arch Enemy - Burning Bridges
Century Media (1999)
1999. The year melodic death metal fractured into the mainstream; Dark Tranquillity’s Projector going goth and electro, In Flames Colony wringing the last drops of Gothenburg purity from the genre, and Darkane taking it to technical heights in Rusted Angel. Let’s not forget Soilwork’s landmark The Chainheart Machine, setting up the genre for synth drenched clean vocal crossover success. Then there’s Burning Bridges, the second effort from the Brothers Amott and one that evaded tape-trader radar… until Angela Gossow was installed after vocalist Johan Liiva’s departure. Of the lot, Burning Bridges melody in their melodic death metal is lead driven rather than riff driven, ala In Flames or Dark Tranquillity. Hair bobbling over frets in a Maiden-like yet crushing Dead Inside is the order of this disc, as is that Carcassy (I’m not sorry, Jeff Walker) death n’ roll tumbling over Seed of Hate. Can you imagine if they pulled out an OSDM slowie like the title track these days? Aficionados of At The Gates should’ve been all over this, only to walk away after releasing their punchy, MTV-flavoured turn in 2001’s Wages of Sin. That said, being underground darlings earns you cred, not cheddar.
King’s X - Faith Hope Love
Megaforce Records (1990)
The funk metal revolution pretty much started (and ended) with King’s X, with the early-90s prog metal sound owing much to this platter and the previous Gretchen Goes to Nebraska. Big bright riffs and slap bass rule It’s Love, while that quasi-psychedelic ethereal sound (think dudes in grainy black and white yet wearing coloured glasses) permeates Six Broken Soldiers and the nine-minute Faith Hope Love, passing a green-smoky baton to Dream Theater, Threshold, and Devin Townsend, taking it to its apotheosis on 2001’s Terria. Dug Pinnick’s soulful gospel-chorus voice anchors everything, wailing like a preacher in We Were Born to be Loved which highlights just how special the combination of these three musos (Dug, Ty Tabor, and Jerry Gaskill) really was. Is? Was.
My Dying Bride - Songs of Darkness, Words of Light
Peaceville (2004)
If Peter Steel and Type O Negative fucked in the dark, My Dying Bride just tortured lovers and cried about it after. Songs of Darkness, Words of Light delivers pain and suffering in just the right amounts, with haunting textures lain over their despair via keyboardist Sarah Stanton. It’s Hamish Glencross and Andrew Craighan crunching out woe as Aaron Stainthorpe’s baritone lies there bleeding - though there were a few risky spanners thrown into their cogs of hopelessness. My Wine in Silence (sounds like a mummy blogger’s dream), plucked big bassy guitar echoing as Stainthorpe murmurs that he’s so alone is akin to what Katatonia was doing at the time; minimalistic and introverted yet straightforward enough you could almost, almost, release it as a single. That tightly woven simplicity leaked into 2006’s rockier A Line of Deathless Kings, although Songs defiantly plants one decayed foot in their purist Peaceville grave. (Past? I don’t fucking know)
Gaerea - Coma
Season of Mist (2024)
Pipped at the post by some very, very good albums in my Top Ten last year, Coma sloughs off black metal archetypes and stereotypes by the burning church-full (what?). Yes there’s ascending tremolos and blast beats (The Poet’s Ballet, World Ablaze) but I’d be remiss if I was to reduce these tracks to a single dimension. World Ablaze veers into piss-soaked Turbonegro territory in a middle-8, while songs like Hope Shatters unleash a cavalcade of high European monarchic orchestral glory, worthy of the courts of Barons and Princes. Grooves and whispers dominate Wilted Flower and leaves one going, how does one band pull this off so well? They go from bloated Dimmu Borgir pomp to Agalloch-ian introversion in the blink of a drowning eye. It’s phenomenal stuff. Repeated listens mesmerises one even further.
