With their sights set on the stars, the Swedish hard rock band STARMEN returns with their fourth album – ”Starmenized”. After unexpectedly debuting with two records in 2020 and following up with another album in 2021, the guys are back with a truly exciting sequel.
Among the album’s cavalcade of hits, melodic hard rock takes the front seat, with original songs that are hard to resist, graphically packaged in a retro comic book style with a running theme that oozes superheroes and rock stars.
In the same style as their rock heroes from the 70s and 80s, the band goes all the way in terms of image with full make-up and accompanying stage clothes, where each member has their own color. Of course, you can see nods to the bands from this era in appearance and musical style, but that’s where the similarities end.
STARMEN writes their own songs and are not afraid to bring the music of previous decades into the present.
For those of you already familiar with the band and the albums already released, ‘Starmenized‘ is just more fun, more sweet classic rock n’ roll. There’s no sudden change of music direction or ‘experimentation’, and thank goodness for that.
Their musical formula works, and works well. They deliver polished melodic hard rock, full of hooks, harmonised vocals and catchy lyrics. No, Starmen aren’t reinventing the wheel, they know what fans of this genre like and expect, and deliver exactly that.
Some may say the whole face paint/ band member names thing is too cheesy for 2023, but to paraphrase Lemmy, you don’t want to see an accountant on stage, you want to see a space alien!
There is certainly something added to Scandinavian drinking water as those Northern Europeans have not just cornered the market in this style of rock, they’ve driven a bloody great flag into the middle of it, declaring it their own.
If you love Scandi melodic rock then Starmen are a band that will be right up your street.
In the tradition of ‘favourite songs’, there are two tracks that for me hold their head above the other eight songs. ‘Renegade Jenny‘, which whilst polished, has a slight roughness to it, and the final song on the album, the title track ‘Starmenized‘, with its catchy chorus.
This is plenty of fun, and Highly Recommended
1. Liar
2. Rockstar
3. Tears Never Dry
4. I Die For You
5. Radioactive
6. Black Moon Rising
7. Renegade Jenny
8. Just A Stranger
9. Word Up (We All Bleed Red)
10. Starmenized
Kristian Hermanson (lv, rg, k, bv)
Andreas Lindgren (lg, bv)
Jonatan Samuelsson (b, k, bv, lv)
John Hector (d, bv)
Starmen – Starmenized 2023+FLAC
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