Album Review: Starscourge - Conqueror of the Stars
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
One thing among many, many others that I adore about this genre is how deeply, fantastically nerdy it is. You can’t step anywhere within metal without tripping arse over heels on literary allusions, video game or movie references, and whole historical sagas brought to vivid life by screaming and distortion. It’s amazing, and while it probably exists in plenty of other genres (I wouldn’t know, I’m not familiar enough with hip hop to know where the Lord of the Rings rappers hang out) the sheer aplomb with which metal embraces it’s geeky side is a source of endless joy for me. We’re here today to talk about Starscourge (which is a fucking awesome name, by the way) who take as an influence the video game megahit “Elden Ring”. I’ve never played Elden Ring – or really any of developer FromSoftware’s efforts – but a through line running like mercury within all them is the existence of a vast body of lore that contextualises and fleshes out the game worlds. It’s a rich source of inspiration for anyone who takes an interest in it – I reviewed another album earlier this year (“Dethroned and Devoured” by Outergods) that looked to FromSoftware’s worlds to spark their imaginations. Successfully, I might add – “Dethroned and Devoured” was a mirthless juggernaut of a release. So, the fertility of the source material established – can it yield us yet more metal worthy of it’s grandeur?
Life is short and death is certain, so let’s blitz through the bullshit first. About the only thing about this album that I think warrants unambiguous criticism is the Slayer cover at the end. “Spirit in Black” is, of itself, a self evidently amazing song – but the vocal take on it here is unfortunately a little on the goofy side. It’s got this exaggerated feel to it that makes it come across as parodic even if it’s totally sincere. Partially I think it’s the emphasis placed on some of the words – listen to the vocal lines when the songs speeds up at 2:28. The lyrics are “Afterlife confessions, tell me who you used to be”, but here instead of “be” at the close of the line it’s “be-YAH!”. The inflections are just…wonky, for lack of a better term. “Welcome to my world, involve yourself within my dream” feels like when it was sang someone squeezed the vocalist’s balls really hard when he sings “self” and “dream” is pronounced “dream-AH!” as if the spirit of every Italian that ever died miserable was channelled during the recording of it. All told, it’s really not that great of a cover. But the thing is that even if we let the devil’s advocate out of the cupboard and just supposed it to be the greatest cover of all time, you’d still have the snag that it sounds nothing the fuck like anything else of the whole album – so it would be awkward and anomalous under any circumstance. But herein lies the twist. It’s for the best that this cover sounds nothing like the rest of the album. Because the rest of this stuff sounds like a menage-a-trois between Cradle of Filth, Dissection and The Black Dahlia Murder backlit by a burning cathedral. And it is the coolest shit ever.
Unfolding layer by layer like melodeath origami Starscourge’s music is a firestorm of epic melodicism that nonetheless remembers the importance of the “death” portion of the genre tag and keeps it’s knives keen as a result. They’re an exercise in taut harmonic density that can be found as often impaling the sunlit cloudbed (as on the jaw-dropping solo work of “The Battle of Aeonia” ) as they can rampaging through the cannon fodder below with the invidious reaper’s sprint of “I am the Starscourge”. They bill themselves as a black/death project, and while I suppose that’s as accurate a term as any, the closest they get to the blacker reaches of their sound are found in the swells of “Whereunto Frenzy Beckoneth” – which is an awkward mouthful of a name for an otherwise fearsome alliance between angelic choir and despoiled, regretful strummed chord progressions in this intoxicating elixir of a black anthem. There’s so much going on, so many killer melodies and riffs firing off like a massed artillery, and all of it lands in this hallowed bullseye that sees it leash speed and viciousness with an unerring knack for hooks and earworm candy. You don’t normally find anything this addictive outside of a crack pipe, but every single tune it whips from the seemingly inexhaustible tome it drags around with it lands perfectly – and as much goes for the riffs and percussion supporting those lead lines too. It will swan dive from fleshy thrash riffs into a superb chorus into an unreasonably good solo into even more indispensably awesome thrash passages into a positively righteous melody that you’ll be humming until the sun itself calls it a day – “Ranni’s Requiem” for just one example. It’s silken in how smooth it all is.
Yet for however gorgeous it frequently is I’d shy from calling it pretty. There’s grit here. A besmirched ugliness to it that communicates that dirt and strife that metal needs for the gut punch to really liquefy your vitals against the wall behind you. Choruses explode out at you with suicidal fervour, demanding your attention. And seeing as I made point of talking unconscionable amounts of shit about the vocals a few scant paragraphs back, lets remedy the insult now. At least partially the reason why that cover is as objectionable as it is comes down to it’s placement in the track list – while I’d argue there isn’t really a sweet spot for it to plonk itself, at the close of the release is debatably the worst seat they could’ve gone for, because it means that you’ve just spent like 9 tracks listening to the vocalist blow himself clean out the water. He takes an incredibly eclectic approach otherwise. Shrill falsetto on “Together my Serpentine Valentine”. Demented, tortured howling on “The Shattering”. Unhinged sermonizing, growls, screams, a scabrous quasi-clean take here and there. The man’s throat is a Swiss army knife of techniques and sounds, all having their place among the glimmering threads of Starscourge’s scorched tapestry. There’s so much personality to the lunatic zealotry with which he attacks every word, a cackling madness riding a sheer edge of mental fragmentation. It’s so enjoyable to listen to him backflip through his range over the course of the tracklist – just so long as you don’t ask him to do some Slayer, I swear to god, if their next album winds up butchering “Chemical Warfare” or something I’ll head over there, slash his tyres, and subtly rearrange all the furniture in his house as he sleeps so he wakes up feeling like something is definitely wrong but has no idea what.
I don’t listen to stuff like this much. Not out of any aversion to it, so much as there’s just an unmanageable amount of awesome stuff flying around the metal scene at any given moment and trying to keep up with even one or two little corners of it presents a hopelessly extensive task. But for 10/11 tracks here, I’m so glad I popped my head momentarily outside of the Death/Grind ramparts i’m normally prancing about on, because almost the entire bulk of this release is incredible. It feels properly epic inside relatively taut song lengths, packing them to bursting with abundant goodness that never once (well, maybe at least once) got close to wearing it’s welcome even marginally thin. It’s well worth every bit of time and treasure that you can lob towards it; just...maybe hold off on the Slayer cover next time lads, yeah?
