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Review: Huntress - Starbound Beast
Huntress
www.huntresskills.com
Starbound Beast

Label: Napalm Records
Year released: 2013
Duration: 45:37
Tracks: 10
Genre: Heavy Metal

Rating:
3/5


Review online: July 22, 2013
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible
Readers' Rating
How do you rate this release?

Rated 3.15/5 (63%) (20 Votes)
Review

Huntress' debut album, Spell Eater, got both overhyped and overhated. It wasn't very good, but it wasn't the worst thing in the world. I think a lot of people reacted to the artificiality of it, the feeling that they were a band just put together by the label to try and ride the current vogue for trad metal, complete with some model as a frontwoman and faux-occult lyrics.

But here we have a follow-up, and while that may or may not speak to their sincerity, it at least shows them developing and improving as a band. The riffs are still pretty simplistic, but at least they are riffs, and the album as a whole sounds less mashed together with studio tricks and more like a band. Frontwoman Jill Janus sounds better this time out, less forced, and her rough midrange dominates as opposed to her screeching on the last disc. I still think she's overselling the lines, and needs to dial it back on the growling and sneering and just fucking sing already. You can hear she has the pipes for it, but she's trying too hard to sound tough most of the time.

I think the problem is that Huntress sound less like a metal band and more like a band that is trying to sound like a metal band. They keep hitting all the expected marks, but they're not laying it down like they really feel it. The lyrics are in places pretty fucking stupid, and that doesn't help their credibility. I'm in a minority here if I say this band could be good, but there's just a certain artificiality to this that can't be ignored or glossed over.

More about Huntress...
Review: Spell Eater (reviewed by MetalMike)
Review: Starbound Beast (reviewed by MetalMike)
Review: Static (reviewed by MetalMike)
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