Starchild – Magic Well
Starchild – Magic Well
Metalapolis Records
Release Date: 08/12/23
Running Time: 48:58
Review by Simon Black
7/10
Another day, another Power Metal band from Germany to review.
Actually, to be fair, it’s not just Germany, but given the template for the Euro Power Metal sound originates with Helloween, and these guys are clearly an influence on Starchild, you can forgive my presumption. Or maybe you can’t, I’m not bothered either way, because it’s nearly Christmas, and I fucking love Christmas (even though I’m not the slightest bit religious), which is why I’m likely to be more forgiving reviewing potentially cheesy Power Metal acts this week. It’s the time of year when you can’t help feeling up-beat and positive – after all in this hemisphere we’re halfway out of the dark and the days are about to get a little longer, and up-beat up-tempo major chord metal fits right in, and saves me having to dig out something dodgy and Christmassy from Rob Halford…
But back to Starchild. They’ve been around for almost a decade, and this is album number four, but having toured with the likes of Edguy and Unisonic, that loyal Euro Power Crowd know that they are about, although they have the challenge of cementing a fairly new line-up in. This can be more of a challenge for the established audience than someone like me coming to them cold, as what I hear is a band with an element of freshness that you struggle to find from many genre contemporaries at this stage n their careers, but there’s nothing like new blood to freshen things up, but this feels like a band hitting their stride.
The songs are all well-crafted, well-rounded anthemic Melodic Power stompers, with enough Progressive flourishes to keep things interesting, which is unusual for a four-piece act in this genre and a measure of the skill. Sandro Giampietro on both vocals and guitar has quite a challenge, but delivers both roles with aplomb, and has a strong and charismatic voice, but doe struggle to separate the melody phrasing from the two parts, which is not uncommon when you only have the one axe to play with, but his performance is strong, as is the song writing which carries things forward and makes the album fly by, even if it’s not breaking any particularly new ground.
Starchild – ‘At The End Of The Rainbow’
TRACKLISTING:
01. War Isn’t Over Yet
02. Castles In The Sky
03. Westernworld
04. Magic Well
05. Violent Violin
06. At The End Of The Rainbow
07. Letters Of Life
08. The Dragon Rises Up Again
09. I’ve Lost A Friend
10. The Golden Train
11. Cyber Punk
12. Later You’ll Know
LINE-UP:
Sandro Giampietro – Vocals/Guitar
Tom Nendza – Bass
Andi Pique – Keyboards
Andreas Schütte – Drums
LINKS:
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