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Starriders is the first full-length album from Columbia's Diamond Chazer and follows the Chasing Diamonds compilation from 2022. Firmly in the NWOTHM camp, these guys play energetic heavy metal with the kind of riffs and high-pitched singing that characterized much of the early to mid-80s. Like the music on the compilation, Starriders features a lot of anthemic songwriting and loose playing, but also some keyboards here and there that dress up tracks like "Starriders I: Lords of the Space" and "Alucarda" with a little extra atmosphere. The singer, who still struggles to stay in tune (most notably on "The Void") tries out some combinations of high and low singing which, along with the extra atmosphere, imparts a bit of a Mercyful Fate feel in a few spots. While I like some of the things Diamond Chazer are doing to try and take their sound in different ways, the songwriting remains indistinctive and the singing in need of work. I give them credit for improving, but there is still a way to go before this band will be a challenger in the traditional metal field.