Starterhead
Inside
4.4
Synopsis:
The less talented, lesser known little brother of Crematory...
Review:
Back in Nuclear Blast’s heyday, Germany’s gothic then industrial laced death/doom metal merchants Crematory were a flagship band, especially in Europe, where Transmigration and ...Just Dreaming were almost groundbreaking goth metal albums, though they made much less of a splash here in the US.
So here comes the debut album from Sweden’s Starterhead and they sound a lot like Crematory in both of their creative phases; deep, death metal growls over keyboard laced mid paced goth/doom metal with the occasional industrial/electronic flourish and female vocal injection. It’s all very dark, restrained and mid paced but also very tepid and bland.
I’m all for dark moody music, but Inside is just plain dull, which is a shame because with a few tweaks and some better songwriting, the morose industrialized meets gothic tones could be appealing. With the guitars being a tad more forceful and the industrial/goth elements being a bit more fluid, tracks like “Death’s Route”, “Imitation Club”, the requisite up tempo number “Unknown World” and the ballad-esque “Insatiable Day” could be something more but as they stand they are nothing more than dreary, keyboard laced attempts at goth metal with little or no character.
Nothing can help floundering, awkward tracks like “Inside”, “Silence” and “The Awakening” coupled with the dull presentation that make Inside a pretty good album to avoid until things get a bit more refined and fine tuned.
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