Starfire – The way I am

Melodic rock band Starfire come from Los Angeles and released their debut album, “Eye of the storm” in 2010.  They then followed up with three singles before releasing their second album, “Business affairs” in 2011.  September 2013 will see the release of their third album, “The way I am”.

Brief comments on a few tracks…

“Rock your world” has a really interesting sound.  It starts with what sounds like a banjo before a really nice heavy beat starts and the guitars take over and vocals join in.  It’s not your typical rock or melodic rock sound – it’s got a funk feel to the music which works really well – a great song.

“Catwalk” has more of a straight rock sound.  It’s quite a slow-paced song like many on the album.

Title track “The way I am” has quite a heavy feel to it.  It’s more of a mid-paced song with some heavy guitars and the bass being very prominent.  It’s probably my favourite song on the album, and that may be partly down to the vocals – the chorus sounds very similar to Toto’s “Africa” (listen to this song and think of the song “Africa” and there is a clear similarity in how the chorus sounds in each.  The rest of the song sounds very different, it’s just those vocals in the chorus.

The songs on the album range from slow-paced to medium-paced – generally slower than a typical melodic rock song.  Despite the slow pace the songs do have a hard edge with the guitars being very prominent in the mix, and the keyboards generally being quite low down.  I’ve found it quite hard to come up with a score for this album – on the one hand there’s some great stuff here, but on the other I’m just not a fan of Dairenn Lombard’s voice and found it slightly grating.  That’s just my personal taste though – other people might love the vocals.

Rating: 7/10

“The way I am” will be released on 20th September 2013

Track listing:

1. Circle of misery
2. Temptation
3. Rock your world
4. Cat walk
5. Lip service
6. Did you know?
7. The angel
8. Pass away
9. It’s you
10. The way I am

Starfire are:

Dairenn Lombard – Vocals & Guitar
Greg Pajer – Guitar
Andrew James – Bass
Blake Paulson – Drums
Neara Russell – Keyboards