My heart swells and my face grins and all Starbound’s generic traits are forgiven. And yet I still find it hard to criticize. Were this released in 1982 it may have been regarded as a classic in its field but in actuality, there’s plenty which came before achieving the same thing. But it would take something truly special to get beyond a 3.5 for something so formulaic, predictable and derivative, and they don’t quite have that edge. My thoughts about Starbound and Osukaru are almost entirely positive on the basis of this release. It presents a protagonist who is wonderfully wistful and damaged and I totally buy in. It has a rocking guitar and keyboard core to its verse, but the awesome vocal harmonizations in the chorus seal the deal. While “Somewhere Sometime Somehow” lands a schmaltzy guitar and sax solo, the true gem is “Within the Depths of Love”. I’m also a dizzy fool for 80s rock ballads 3 and the ones here are no exception. The opening title track and “Go for the Legends” exemplify this quality, inspiring its listener with lyrics like “Reach out and take it… This is your time to shine!” It’s impossible for me to hear songs like this and not smile, and the huge choruses are just irresistible. And why not? It’s been a universally shitty 18 months. I accept this is not an emotion ordinarily associated with rock and metal music but it’s just so damn uplifting. You ultimately identify with music that makes you feel something here, it’s joy.
This contrast between heavy and light makes for engaging listening when it arises.īut most of all, it’s how the record makes me feel that elevates it. In particular, “Rise of the Underdog” switches between rolling drums and driving guitars in its introduction, leaning on loud keyboards in its verse, before stripping most back to make a clearing for the clean, high-pitched singing in the chorus. Similarly, while Osukaru hardly attempt to escape the confines of the traditional glam sound, there are small fragments of dynamism on a few of the songs. It’s laser-focused on collating songs which are individually distinct but collectively alike. And yet the song-writing is so precise and direct that while it feels lo-fi, it’s far from sloppy. The result is a distinctly lo-fi production, something which sounds (and probably was) cobbled together by individuals who were more enthusiastic than professional. The mix and master are otherwise bland too. And the promo version of the album has a bit rate of just 192 kbps, leaving a relatively meager sound. Starbound is not blessed with articulate, subtle artwork. It’s also a record marked with curious dichotomies. A Core Fragment is a small, orange gem-like item that can be found, as the name implies, in the core of many planets. Starbound is a testament to sharp, direct song-writing which doesn’t mess around with atmosphere, technicality or tone. Teleporters have existed in Starbound since the beginning.
It represents the sweet, sweet sound of leotards, headbands and positivity, resulting in a record that feels half as long as it’s 39 minutes. There’s nothing here which is shocking or novel, but it’s neatly, compellingly executed. 3 verses, 3 choruses, vocal harmonization, guitar solos and underlying keyboard melodies are all that’s required by each track to forge the album. 2 Its surprisingly nifty leads, huge choruses and confident vocal harmonies land it close to those Sheffielders. Starbound falls into that nebulous crossover of glam metal, album-oriented rock and hard rock, sounding closer to Pyromania-era Leppard than anything else. There were dozens of bands in the 80s doing almost exactly what’s done here. In the intervening 3 decades, such listeners scarcely strayed from their pre-90s tastes 1 This means that bands like Osukaru struggle to escape obscurity – but miss this at your peril. The target demographic of their sixth release, Starbound, stopped listening to new music in 1992 with the last good Def Leppard record, the stratification of a variety of extreme metal sub-genres and the advent of grunge as the most popular form of rock. In the case of Sweden’s Osukaru, I suspect it may be a consequence of their style. It usually signifies a group toiling in mediocrity, never having sufficiently impressed a critical mass to start developing a reputation. WARNING - This is an "automated" page.Alarm bells tend to ring when, after randomly picked an album for review, that album is one of several for a band you’ve never heard previously. It requires 2,850 research and 5 titanium bars to unlock the recipe. Its recipe can be unlocked under the Engineering section of research.
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