More than 20 years after ex-Virgin Steele guitarist Jack Starr helped define the sound that eventually melded into modern-day power metal, he returns with an album that could compete with some of the bands his old group helped spawn. Under A Savage Sky, the debut from Jack Starr's Guardians of the Flame, is steeped in straight-ahead traditional heavy metal with lyrics about "unholy alliances made in the dark" and "defenders of the realm." It sounds familiar, because these veteran players — Starr, singer Shmoulik Avigal, and drummer Joe Hasselvander and bassist Ned Meloni (both early members of Starr's mid-Eighties band, Burning Starr) — know what they're doing by targeting current power-metal listeners as much as longtime old-school metal fans. Standout track "The Flame That Never Dies" even begins with a choir that recalls Rhapsody's symphonic-metal epics.
At their essence, songs such as "I Stand Alone," "Masters of Fate" and the title track — with anthem-like choruses, heavy power chords and rousing melodies — will likely remind listeners of what drew them to metal in the first place. Throughout the record, Starr's solos soar, and the two instrumentals among these 10 tracks ("Anthem for Nations" and "Return From the Ashes") sound as good as, if not better than, some of the songs with vocals. Those, by the way, would be "Cry For Dawn" and "Sharon of the Woods," which come off stale and do little but perpetuate genre stereotypes.
Starr deserves credit for dancing along the fine line between remaining loyal to his roots and embracing today's current sound. Many other artists have tried and failed to achieve such balance. What's more, with Under A Savage Sky -- originally released earlier in 2003 by Greece's Cult Metal Classics and picked up for North American distribution by Crash Music -- Starr comes closer to Virgin Steele's original sound than anything his former band has released in recent years.
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