adg211288 Starbound Beast (2013) is the second full-length album to be released by US heavy metal act Huntress. The album follows hot on the heels of debut effort Spell Eater (2012), an album that earned my regard as one of the best debuts of the year (and indeed one of the best albums of the year). There's been a couple of changes within Huntress between albums though as bassist Eric Harris departed the band. Rather than find a new bass player guitarist Ian Alden switched instrument and Anthony Crocamo (DarkBlack) took over Alden's original role in the band. Lemmy Kilmister of UK metal legends Motörhead wrote a song specially for the album, entitled I Want to Fuck You to Death.

I'm always a little sceptical about bands releasing new material so soon after delivering such a killer album, as Spell Eater was for Huntress, just in case they ran out of steam. While I think it is fair to say in regard to Starbound Beast that it doesn't pack quite the same immediate punch of its predecessor, the reason for that is that once you scratch the surface you find that this is in fact quite a different album even though it uses the same basic elements as Spell Eater.

Spell Eater consisted of about an equal mix of aggressive traditional heavy metal and thrash metal. The thrash metal elements have been cut back quite a bit this time around, although they are still present. That's not say we're not dealing with a fair amount of Huntress' faster paced stuff, but some of the faster riffs put me more in mind of the US style of power metal this time. Overall though this very much remains a traditional metal album, but there is one more new element that deserves mention, the album's unexpected progressive touches. While Starbound Beast could never in a million years be considered a progressive metal album, there's a level of creativity within the song structures this time around, and more depth to the songs overall, which wasn't present on Spell Eater. Here it is quite the common occurrence that the music will go off on the odd little tangent every now and then rather than being in your face all the time.

Vocalist Jill Janus also seems more restrained in her singing this time around. There's still a bit of screaming and growling and overall her vocals still have that distinctive rough edge that make her so suited for the brand of metal that Huntress play, but she's much more melodic overall. I presume that's a conscious style choice given the direction the music has taken, and it pays off.

The songs themselves are another excellent bunch, and serve to diversify what fans of Spell Eater will be used to from Huntress. You've got the more traditional Huntress fare in a song like Blood Sisters in which Jill Janus shows off all her vocal prowess including both black and death metal suitable growling. Later in the album you have a belter of a track in the form of Zenith, which is pretty much pure power-thrash while in the closing Alpha Tauri they'll shock you with some unexpected mellowness.

While I do find that Starbound Beast is much less immediate than Spell Eater, requiring more time to sink in and grow on me, after half a dozen listens it's done just that, ultimately earning the album about the same regard from me as Spell Eater. As a matter of personal taste I do think the debut is slightly better, although it's difficult not to rate both albums on the same (highest) rating tier for the abundant quality and passion heard in the music.

If I'm honest though I have a feeling that Starbound Beast may enjoy more success than its predecessor because let's be fair, Spell Eater seemed to divide opinion (although perhaps that is always the way with such a highly hyped up debut release). For me though Starbound Beast is the work of a band who have all the makings of one of this generation's true classic acts. Starbound Beast was the album they needed to make after Spell Eater because as good as the debut is, even if not everyone realises it, it wouldn't have been in the band's best interests to make Spell Eater 2. Instead Starbound Beast keeps their sound recognisable, but shows their fans (and indeed, their naysayers) that there's more to them than meets the eye. I call that a winner, how about you?

95/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/huntress-starbound-beast-t3022.html)

adg211288 Spell Eater is the debut full-length album by US metal act Huntress. The female fronted act has previously released an EP called Off With Her Head in 2010 but has gone through a couple of line-up changes since then. Initially taking the whole line-up of another US band called Professor with the addition of Jill Janus, Huntress’ line-up now only includes the guitarists from Professor, Blake Meahl and Ian Alden. Joining the line-up is former DarkBlack drummer Carl Wierzbicky and former Skeletonwitch bassist Eric Harris. Spell Eater was released in April 2012, following quite a lengthy build up since the December 2011 release of the album’s lead single Eight of Swords.

Huntress plays traditional heavy metal, but there are several tracks on Spell Eater that also draw on thrash metal. We’re not talking an album that brings anything particularly new to the table, but maybe there’s a reason why it’s called ‘traditional’ heavy metal. After all why break a winning formula?

Unfortunately prior to publishing this review it has come to my attention that they album has had some mixed reactions, and sadly the negative side of those reactions often seems to be more about Jill Janus’ image than anything. I wanted to write this without bringing image into it but I’ve decided that’s impossible (mostly because some of the stereotypical reactions annoy me), so I’m going to get my view on this out of the way now before I talk about the music proper. It’s true that in most of the band’s photos Jill cuts quite the scantily clad look, which will no doubt on one hand draw some people to her and Huntress, but on the other make people think the band is hiding a lack of talent behind a hot female with little clothing on. The latter is simply not true. Jill Janus may show a lot more skin than some are really comfortable with, but she also certainly has the vocal skills to back it up with. What we are talking about is one of the best albums of traditional heavy metal you’re likely to hear in 2012.

And Jill Janus is in fact the main reason for that. While she’s got a great group of musicians behind her on Spell Eater delivering some killer riffs and leads it’s this lady’s vocals that make all the difference. Unlike the majority of female vocalists in metal acts, Jill does not sing pop (Sirenia, Skylark etc), nor does she sing opera (Tarja, Xandria etc). Jill Janus sings metal. And she sings metal really damn well, better than most men I dare say. With vocals ranging from an aggressive and gritty approach to more melodic lines to the odd bit of growling that can go towards both death and black metal styles, there isn’t a twist and turn on the album that she doesn’t handle. Her performance is sensational all the way through and we’re definitely talking the same level of calibre as the likes of Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian) or Matt Barlow (ex-Iced Earth). I know those are all male, but with the style of vocals Jill delivers, much like with growling, gender is pretty much irrelevant. These are very much heavy metal vocals and there is no better way to describe them. Of course if you want comparisons to be made to female vocalists then you need look no further than Marta Gabriel (Crystal Viper) or Kate French (Vainglory). I’d say Jill Janus has even more aggression in her vocals than either of them though.

The production of the music is clear yet not as polished as some other modern heavy metal albums I’ve heard, but neither is it totally retro sounding. I think they found the perfect balance here already so it shows off the band’s skill as musicians perfectly without coming across as being too manufactured.

One thing I will say about the songs though is that nearly all of them required at least three listens in order to properly click with me, and a couple of them took even more than that. It’s only really that single Eight of Swords that is an immediate attention grabber. But once I’d given Spell Eater several full spins more of more tracks began to stand out until at last the whole album sounded of the same sort of quality as Eight of Swords did right from the off. Although I can single out Eight of Swords as the album’s true jewel because it does stand out faster than all the other tracks, there’s not a track here that doesn’t have its own merits both musically or vocally. From the opening aggression and great riffs of the title track to the infectious Senicide or the use of black metal growling in Sleep and Death to the stunning vocal control displayed by Janus during Aradia, Spell Eater is an album that, once given the proper time for it to sink in, will have you coming back for more and more. The band’s prior EP barely even hinted as the power that Huntress was going to go on to have with this debut. Believe the hype, because Spell Eater is one of those albums that, as Dark Forest’s Dawn of Infinity did for me in 2011, came out of nowhere and blew me away.

And yet it still feels very much more than just a top quality heavy metal album. Albums have excited me before in the past but never quite to the level of what Huntress just did with Spell Eater. I think it’s for that reason that this review was one of the hardest I’ve ever written. While Huntress may be just a bit too much rooted in traditional values musically (though I have no problem with that) to be accepted by the wider metal crowd in today’s metal scene of many metalcore and so called djent bands making names for themselves I don’t think it’s unfair to say that Huntress have put out a debut to rival the greatest metal debuts of all time. Spell Eater is an aggressive, catchy and passionate slab of heavy metal and if there is such a thing as ‘true’ metal then this album certainly is it, not to mention that in Jill Janus the band has a vocalist of the highest calibre, possibly even the best heavy metal vocalist to hit the scene in years.

While topping this beast may be difficult for the band, I have no doubt that Huntress are the band leading the way among the growing number of female fronted heavy and power metal bands who have been releasing albums in 2012. This is an absolute must-buy and a top-tier score is well deserved. If people don’t give Spell Eater a chance just because they don’t agree with the band’s pagan ideology, their (or rather Jill’s) image, which honestly isn’t at all unfitting to her lyrics, or simply think they’ve received too much hype from the metal press to be worth listening to, then it is their loss and theirs alone. I rarely swear in my reviews but this time I will make an exception; Huntress are metal as fuck, and their naysayers need to deal with that. If you don’t at least acknowledge this as more than a scantily clad female fronting at metal band, then I highly doubt that you either really like or understand heavy metal. Not really.

9.8/10

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))