Starshine – Demo 2005
Instrumental black metal… full of diseased guitar lines and agonizing atmosphere dwells on this ambitious and definitely unique/bizarre, 4 song CDr demo from the 2 piece Starshine. Thankfully this project possesses an actual drummer, giving the whole of this material a very organic aura for acidic guitar lines to eat away the listeners sanity and notions about what black metal is “supposed” to be. It has taken me several very tranced out listens to be ok with the fact that there aren’t any vocals on this release, which was initially a big hurdle for me to get over before fully embracing this body of work. U Amtey’s playing style is completely non conventional and his riffs quickly demonstrate that fact as he weaves these vicious guitar rituals that sound as if they arose from the mind of the clinically deranged. Infinitely dissonant and dense guitar lines build an immense amount of tension and just as you think that “this cannot get any thicker or more fucked up”, Amtey somehow introduces gentle harmonies that eventually claw their way out of the writhing pile of coherent, but unnerving distortion, to offer a new avenue of haunting musical deconstruction for us to attempt to wrap our mind around. At first listen, the overall delivery struck me as a Xasthur level of black metal, for the fuzzed out suicidal feelings are certainly at the core of this musical nightmare, but Starshine really prove themselves as being far more tormented and unique in the way they layer this music. Such a completely huge and ugly fucking sound is on display here, yet the bands unique use of melody and layered torment sets them far and away in an elite class of thinking mans black metal, that your average bedroom warrior simply cannot even fathom, let alone hang with creatively. Yes… I will remain steadfast with the opinion that vocals could only make this already menacing project even more so, I still get what they are trying, and have completely accomplished. Even thought this material isn’t something that I’m going to spin daily due to the overwhelming claustrophobic density on display, every time I put on this demo, I’m amazed and disturbed at what I’m hearing and I applaud Starshine for their brave innovation in a genre filled with faceless sheep. – Marty
Web: http://myspace/777starshine
Email: uamtey@gmail.com
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