{"id":12728,"date":"2013-06-23T00:00:04","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T00:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=12728"},"modified":"2013-06-23T19:41:44","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T19:41:44","slug":"album-review-huntress-starbound-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-huntress-starbound-beast\/","title":{"rendered":"HUNTRESS – Starbound Beast (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

HUNTRESS
Starbound Beast<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nNapalm (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 9\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Just a little over a year past the release of their 2012 debut album, Spell Eater<\/em>, Huntress return with Starbound Beast<\/em>. The band\u2019s sophomore release was recorded by Zeuss (Hatebreed, Shadows Fall, Agnostic Front etc.) in Los Angeles, California, at Hobby Shop Studios. While the band\u2019s debut focused solely on witchery and occult themes, they branch out here more lyrically by adding in themes centred on the \u201cgalactic unknown\u201d and the craving we have to connect with it. <\/p>\n

The album begins with the epic and atmospheric \u2018Enter The Exosphere\u2019 intro. Normally, I despise intros but this one really sets the tone for the album as a whole and proves an interesting addition to the album by virtue of making you feel \u201cspacey\u201d before the band launch into the songs.<\/p>\n

\u2018Blood Sisters\u2019 kicks it all off in a pretty grand way, with some excellent guitar grooves that bring the traditional metal sound into the mix more heavily and a dynamic vocal performance, that includes a hearty portion of clean singing, some banshee wails, and even some growly bits by ringleader Jill Janus. The Highland Park, California-based band set the tone right from the get-go with these two pieces and the rest of the album follows suit.<\/p>\n

The title track wraps itself around a mid-tempo groove that leaves lots of room for Janus\u2019 vocals to breathe the atmosphere into the song, while boasting a chorus that borders on a stoner-style breakdown with echoic vocals and a trippy lead that creates plenty of dissonance.<\/p>\n

\u2018Receiver\u2019 is one of the most aggressive tracks and reminds me a little of really old Hades tunes. Janus is still mostly clean singing throughout this one, but she adds a little \u201csmoker voice\u201d flavour to the verses that makes her sound a lot meaner than she does on some of the other tracks. Meanwhile, she mimics the guitar solo vocally, showing off her multiple octave range (Screw you Mariah Carey!). <\/p>\n

\u2018I Want To Fuck You To Death\u2019 gets the award for most stupid song title of 2013, but once you get past that it\u2019s one of the album\u2019s best tracks. Janus wails on it as the band lay a nice groove. It has a short and sweet chorus melody that makes it sound more dynamic without wussing it out. The twin guitar lead is noteworthy here as well, as it\u2019s a lot more laid-back than the leads on some of the other songs, really giving each note some space and allowing you to really feel it. <\/p>\n

In the end, there isn\u2019t a bad song on Starbound Beast<\/em>. I was very excited when this band hit the scene, but Spell Eater<\/em> ended up being an album I really couldn\u2019t connect with. It just never felt, to me, like it gelled at all. Janus was screaming like a banshee seemingly non-stop and the band sounded thin. All of this is rectified on Starbound Beast<\/em>. This one has a full but aggressive sound and Janus\u2019 vocals show off much more of her ability than the debut did. The band sound like they are completely locked in, but beyond that the songs are much better written, as proven by the fact that each one is memorable.<\/p>\n

Huntress have successfully avoided the sophomore slump with Starbound Beast<\/em> and have become the monster metal fans hoped they could be.<\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HUNTRESSStarbound Beast Napalm (2013)Rating: 9\/10 Just a little over a year past the release of their 2012 debut album, Spell Eater, Huntress return with Starbound Beast. The band\u2019s sophomore release was recorded by Zeuss (Hatebreed, Shadows Fall, Agnostic Front etc.) in Los Angeles, California, at Hobby Shop Studios. While the band\u2019s debut focused solely on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-huntress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12728"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12731,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12728\/revisions\/12731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}