JACK STARR’s BURNING STARR – Stand Your Ground (2017)
“Stand Your Ground“, the long-awaited new studio album from classic U.S. Metal act JACK STARR’S BURNING STARR, will be released on August 25 via High Roller Records.
Guitar wizard Jack Starr was focused in his solo carrer and other projects for the last eight years, but when he returns with his ’80s band Jack Starr’s Burning Starr – which has been active for more than 3 decades – he never does anything halfway.
“Stand Your Ground” rocks, and rocks greatly.
Starr is a guitar guru and a fretboard master, but what makes a Starr album so great goes beyond that. First, while his guitar lines take center stage, Starr is an exceptional songwriter. He knows how to use melody, harmony and punch to create entertaining classic US metal.
Throw in twists and hooks from riffage to hard rock groove to catchy lyrical refrains, and song composition becomes the perfect storm of melodic metal.
Second, Starr recruits some skilled and experienced musicians to execute his musical schemes.
Veteran of heavy metal Kenny Earl Edwards aka Rhino (Manowar) on drums; compatriot from other bands (Guardians of the Flame, Phantom Lord) Ned Meloni on bass, and Todd Michael Hall (Riot), one of the best true metal vocalists you will ever hear.
It’s the making of traditional, good metal magic.
All songs, speaking of this genre’s core, are terrific. Hall sounds amazing throughout singing melodic and clean with passion, fervor. Of course, Starr burns up the fret board with his thrilling skillful solos.
You get some of Starr’s motivational metal with ‘Hero’, ‘Destiny’, ‘We Are One’, and the epic long player title track ‘Stand Your Ground’.
Something of a metal anthem comes with ‘Escape From The Night’, which has a fine choral vocal arrangement. Burning Starr gets a serious rock groove going with the catchy ‘Secrets We Hide’.
Finally, a ballad comes with ‘Worlds Apart’, a midtempo, classy melodic metal break up song.
“Stand Your Ground” could have been a fortune maker in late ’80s, its essence is so strong that it should ranked as one of the best US Metal albums in the last two decades.
Killer traditional riffs that cross the wits of British Metal along with the development of the genre in the US back in the ’80s, mighty solos that aren’t busy on too much techniques (just pure to the bone), a terrific singer that passion drips from his voice, and a pounding rhythm section that is heavily tight, everything is under a neat package.
“Stand Your Ground” seemed to me like a determined Jack Starr, an old school artist that stands his ground without even considering to surrender to the evolutionary versions that have been molesting Metal music.
Keep it true!
01. Secrets We Hide
02. The Enemy
03. Stand Your Ground
04. Hero
05. Destiny
06. The Sky Is Falling
07. Worlds Apart
08. Escape from the Night
09. We Are One
10. Stronger than Steel
11. False Gods
12. To the Ends
Jack Starr – Guitars
Ned Meloni – Bass
Todd Michael Hall – Vocals
Kenny “Rhino” Earl – Drums
Pre Order;
www.amazon.de/Stand-Ground-Starrs-Burning-Starr/dp/B074PV967J
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