| CD REVIEW Star One |
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Band : Star One From the website of mastermind Arjen Anthony Lucassen (best known and revered world-wide for his Rock opera project Ayreon, although his side-projects Strange Hobby, Ambeon, Stream Of Passion, and Guilt Machine have known equal success...and let's not forget he started his career in Bodine and Vengeance): “...Star One is a straight-forward and hard-edge Metal side-project which Arjen Lucassen created as a reaction to the soft and atmospheric Ambeon release a year earlier. Although Star One was initially intended to be a single-singer project, it quickly transformed into a multi-singer project featuring singers Russell Allen, Dan Swanö, Damian Wilson and Floor Jansen, and later that year Arjen toured with most of this stellar cast during the Intergalactic Space Crusader Tour 2002. Nearly all the songs are based on science fiction movies situated in space...The name Star One comes from a '70s cult television series named Blake's 7, in which an artificial planet called “Star One” is featured...” You see, besides music, Lucassen also has a passion for science fiction movies and series...but it wasn't until the 2002 album Space Metal album (the tour mentioned above gave birth to the 2003 released live album Live On Earth) that he was able to truly combine these two passions. Having just gone through the somewhat relaxed project Guilt Machine, Lucassen felt the urge to go for something heavy and straight-forward again...time to rekindle the Star One project, and so with a new batch of movies/ series as influences, he set about writing the material. When his mind wandered about which singers to approach for the project, a friend whispered in his ear that, as opposed to the vocal adaptive Ayreon, he really ought to try and keep the same vocal line-up this time around...something to which he whole-heartedly agreed. So he re-united Allen (of Symphony X fame, but also solo outings and his collaboration with Jorn Lande), Wilson (Headspace, Threshold), Floor Jansen (ex-After Forever, now ReVamp) and Dan Swanö (currently Nightingale and Second Sky, a revered Death Metal producer in his own right). The latter, at first somewhat reluctant to contribute his typical grunted vocals, was nevertheless glad enough to participate again. As special vocal guests on the 2nd CD to be included only in the Special edition of the album, he also invited Tony Martin (ex-Black Sabbath), Mike Andersson (Cloudscape, Full Force, Silent Memorial), and Rodney Blaze to come put down extra parts. Instrumentally, Lucassen imself took care of all rhythm guitars, Hammond organ, Mellotron, Solina strings and analog synthesizers himself, inviting good friends Ed Warby (drums; frequent Ayreon collaborator, also known from Hail Of Bullets, Gorefest) and Peter Vink (bass) to lay down the rhythm section foundation. For their solo skills, he recruited Joost van den Broek (formerly of After Forever) and guitarist Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery). As opposed to Space Metal, the subject matter this time is nót sought out in space, but mostly here on earth, and in a post-apocalyptic setting. Although in the info that goes with out promo download of the album Lucassen is not willing to reveal the movies that inspired the songs, in sóme cases the influences are quite evident: “Human See, Human Do” is obviously inspired by Planet Of the Apes, and in the case of Cassandra Complex, can there be any doubt? Anyway, some browsing on the internet will soon enough have you revealed which movie stands behind each separate song. Regretfully, I never came across Space Metal, so I cannot compare for myself, but luckily the promo info informs us that the overall sound of Victims Of The Modern Age is overall darker, more guitar-oriented, and slightly less “spacey”. Whatever, the end result stands like a brick house in an earthquake and landslide free area (gotta be careful how we use the even most common sayings these days) instrumentally, has a most incredible vocal strength (well, what do you expect, with the people involved), and as usual with Lucassen he's managed to blend all of that in incredibly catchy and melodic songs, which immediately grab the listener's attention. To check out a couple of songs, surf to myspace.com/staronearjenlucassensotherproject, where you'll also find soundfiles from some of his other projects. For even more soundfiles and videos of the other projects (including old Star One material), check out (www.) arjenanthonylucassn.com, and enjoy the offering! In the meantime, allow me to give Victims Of The Modern Age an honorary place in my year-lists. 98/100 Tony. |
