WildeStarr

Dave Starr, mostly known for his bass work with Vicious Rumors, now comes with his first solo album, made in cooperation with London Wilde under the name WildeStarr. London takes up the vocal and keyboard duties, while Dave does all the guitars and bass and the drums are done by Jim Hawthorne.

The album opens strong with Rose In The Dark. The guitar sound very catchy and contains a lot of energy. The vocals are really strong and explode from the speakers. Wilde has a great and diverse voice and shows that. The whole song is very good under control and in balance. In the title song Arrival the vocals take the lead and while the guitar play is great it are still the vocals who strike the most.

Then Touching God arises, but that song is not a killer, although the guitar parts sound a bit catchy and the voice is still great. It is something extra that misses a sort of connection. Rise restores the honor of the duo and even contains Rob Halford kind of screams. Down Of The Sun is a song with a lot of emotion, that can be heard in the voice as well as in the music. It flows as great powerful waves around the room, splashing against the walls and leaving a soul that is touch by the magic of the music.

The songs that follow are all heavy with a great feel in the voice except for Nevermore which is a power ballad. The vocals follow musical lines that show a lot of emotion. The guitar extends the emotional lines, especially with the solo, that speaks out.

This is pure metal with no false elements touched to it. It is the rawest form, maybe sugarcoated with great musical solos and emotion, but it really is heavy metal. For people who thought it would be power metal, because of the ‘keyboard duties’, don’t be fooled. The keyboard is only there for the atmosphere, but the overall dominating things are the guitar and the voice of London, supported by some great drum work.

The album is finished epically with the song The Chain. The album Arrival will be a great addition to every collection of metal out there. It is classic, it has style and contains all the ingredients metal should have. WildeStarr is now the brightest star out there and you can catch it!

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