Huntress, huh. Semi-cool name, female vocals not descended from heaven on angel wings. Worth a shot. Interestingly enough, the music player has labeled Starbound Beast as Blues. This is clearly incorrect…though hoping this album would be interesting and then listening to it has caused a case of the blues.
The lowdown: Starbound Beast is essentially insipid Hollywood metal. It gives the outward appearance of being occult or astronomically inclined. But with a sticky slick production and uninspired lyrics, that isn’t the case. You see, it’s appearance that gets Huntress attention. Vocalist Jill Janus, who is better at selling her looks than her voice, fronts well as an attractive blonde with fake breasts who likes to yell. But her vocals are mediocre at best, and looks don’t get you much in this beloved music genre of ours (see virtually every metal group ever for examples of this).
To be honest, musically Huntress has got some chops. They have the ability to write catchy tunes, with some good riffs, which is commendable. They even convinced Lemmy to chip in and help write “I Want to Fuck You to Death” (which is a terrible song, by the way…shame on you, Lemmy). But songs such as “Blood Sisters” or “Destroy Your Life” are simply not memorable at all without silicone-filled flesh bags tacked on front. Nothing stands out, and the generally overproduced everything makes the whole affair seem disingenuous. Too polished, too little substance…too little brains, without the irony.
Huntress is by no means a terrible band, but their music is so standard that not much of anything behind Janus makes an impression, aside from her ass. Being a woman, I could probably touch on issues such as perpetuating gender stereotypes and selling one’s self short as a female, but I don’t think I need to go there. That kind of analysis would be way overthinking the basis of Huntress‘ music. Huntress throws around some cool ideas within Starbound Beast, but ultimately markets a generic product without much staying power.
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yeah, I couldn’t get into this band at all, and I’m all about this 70s occult rock thing…
on Jul 29th, 2013 at 09:08album cover was the best thing here. the new Jess and the Ancient Ones EP, on the other hand, is pretty nifty.
on Jul 30th, 2013 at 08:57I must admit, never would have given them a listen if it wasn’t for that original band picture with Jill looking super sexy. But I also must admit after the fact I enjoy the music and her singing a lot, even though a lot of their lyrics are laughably bad (like the song Lemmy did, which likely took him all of about two minutes to scribble down on a cocktail napkin). At the end of the day, Jill is a tremendous vocalist and not a bad front for the rest of the band to stand behind. If she sucked at what she does, like a lot of singers, I’d certainly stand behind the “pair of fleshbags nothing more” sentiment of this biased review. Maybe they’ll be a gateway to other more quality ff bands like Crystal Viper, Dreaming Dead, etc…
on Jul 31st, 2013 at 06:54I gotta say I sort of miss Professor, one of the two “ancestors” of this band. It was much more vintage and stripped down than this ever will be. I caught myself asking the guys whether they’re thinking of writing some material for that project again but got no response, albeit I knew deep down their main focus is clearly elsewhere right now.
About this album – I was also a bit taken aback by the L.A. metal vibe, although I didn’t expect them to write the same album twice. It feels more like rock and roll than actual metal in most songs and I guess this pacing’s gotta be appreciated as the second half of the record sounds like a forced return to the “Spelleater” feel that rings rather false and falls completely flat and tired.
I supposed the liveshow might make up for the way this one fails to impress. I really don’t give a damn about image so the energy would have to be extremely infectious and I gotta say Jill was really born to be onstage and do what she’s doing. She’s a professional and I doubt she’s in it to flaunt her stuff, same way Angela Gossow couldn’t give a shit about the Beauty Pageants in mags like Revolver.
on Aug 8th, 2013 at 09:40