{"id":47020,"date":"2014-11-22T09:21:46","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T14:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=47020"},"modified":"2014-11-22T09:21:46","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T14:21:46","slug":"starblind-darkest-horrors-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2014\/starblind-darkest-horrors-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Starblind | Darkest Horrors<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"StarblindStarting with Wolf and carrying on through bands like Enforcer and Air Raid, Sweden has been at the forefront of the traditional heavy metal revival. Stockholm-based Starblind is the latest Swedish band to pick up the banner of old school heavy metal in the new era. The band, which features former Steel Attack drummer Micke \u201cMike\u201d Stark on vocals, released their debut album, titled Darkest Horrors<\/em>, on the Stormspell label earlier this year.<\/p>\n

You can tell right off the bat that Starblind’s influences are the usual suspects \u2013 namely early ’80s Judas Priest and DiAnno-era Iron Maiden. The guitars alone hammer that sound home. Beyond that there’s a strong Exciter vibe on Darkest Horrors<\/em>, and there’s also something in the vocals, particularly around the choruses, that brings to mind early power metal bands like Gamma Ray and Scanner. Stark turns in a surprisingly strong performance on vocals, delivering a solid mid-range and some killer screaming.<\/p>\n

Any time you’re essentially throwing NWOBHM, Canadian speed metal and early power metal in a blender, the results are going to be fun, and this a totally fun old school metal album. Darkest Horrors<\/em> has infectious guitar melodies, powerful vocals and an obvious love for classic heavy metal. \u201cBlood in the Night,\u201d \u201cThe Great Hunt\u201d and especially the title track are the highlights, but the whole album is solid.<\/p>\n

Starblind may be treading on very familiar ground, but that’s the whole point with these retro bands. Still, there’s a difference between digging a band because they have an sold school sound and really getting into them because of their own unique characteristics (see: Wolf and Air Raid). Starblind isn’t quite in that latter category, at least not yet. That said, there’s plenty for fans of the new wave of traditional metal bands \u2013 especially bands like Rocka Rollas, Johnny Touch and Skelator \u2013 to enjoy on Darkest Horrors. Starblind delivered the goods with this album, and it will be interesting to see where they go from here.<\/p>\n

Genre: Heavy Metal, Traditional Metal<\/p>\n

Band:
\nDaniel Tillburg (b)
\nZackarias Wikner (d)
\nJ.J. Glitter (g)
\nBjorn Rosenblad (g)
\nMike Stark (v)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tAscendancy
\n2.\tBlood in the Night
\n3.\tCrystal Tears
\n4.\tDarkest Horrors
\n5.\tThe Reckoning
\n6.\tMountain of Madness
\n7.\tThe Great Hunt
\n8.\tI Stand Alone
\n9.\tTemple of Set<\/p>\n

Label: Stormspell Records<\/p>\n

Website: www.starblind.se<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 7\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines – Senior Columnist — Starting with Wolf and carrying on through bands like Enforcer and Air Raid, Sweden has been at the forefront of the traditional heavy metal revival. Stockholm-based Starblind is […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":47053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10848],"tags":[2317,10320,2491,10319,5930,3605],"class_list":{"0":"post-47020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2014","8":"tag-cd-review","9":"tag-darkest-horrors","10":"tag-heavy-metal","11":"tag-starblind","12":"tag-stormspell-records","13":"tag-traditional-metal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}