SPACE METAL

Being a fan of Shadow Gallery, Symphony X, Threshold (especially the Damian Wilson-led albums), and Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, I guess I was bound to eventually check this out given the people involved here (even if I honestly cannot stand much of what I've heard from Arjen Lucassen's other project, Ayreon). Unlike Ayreon's often messy and incoherent albums, Star One's Space Metal sticks pretty much to a single musical style throughout; a highly melodic and spacy, progressive (Power) Metal. Even with more than one lead vocalist involved, the present album is also in that respect more consistent than most Ayreon albums which usually involved even more vocalists (and instrumentalists) often to the detriment of coherence. The music of Star One is more direct and to the point, which I think is preferable over the overblown Rock Opera format.

Much of the lead vocals are done by Damian Wilson and Sir Russell Allen (often both of them together) with lots of female background vocals. I very much like these two distinctive vocalists and I must say that they do a great job here even if I prefer them in their natural habitats of Threshold and Symphony X respectively. The lyrics they are given to sing are, however, often cheesy and full of clichés. Jens Johansson of Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force fame hands in some great keyboard solos in his own very characteristic style.

The material is quite strong and the melodies are memorable and I find this enjoyable and pleasant overall. But nothing here is really impressive as such. It is rather as one would have expected it to be given the title, the theme, and the people involved.

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