Review by Daniel for Helstar - Burning Star (1984)

"Burning Star" was the debut release from five-piece heavy metal outfit Helstar who first formed in Houston, Texas in 1982. Now what the hell is a "Helstar" exactly? I’ve got no idea to be honest. Are we suggesting that when people die they actually travel through space to reside inside an alien sun in some completely foreign part of the universe? That’s a more believable theory than the one presented by the bible I suppose. At least we’ve got a location based on known physical concepts. Anyway… I’ve noticed that Helstar have quite the cult underground following in power metal circles these days & even though their first-up effort is built around a more traditional heavy metal sound than their later material, you can certainly hear the initial elements that made up the US power metal model.

Helstar picked up their record deal with Combat Records off the back of two demo tapes they released in 1983 with the album being produced by The Rods drummer Carl Canedy (who also was an early member of Manowar).  The production is worth mentioning as it’s definitely got a charm to it with the driving bass lines sounding loud & powerful & the rhythm guitars having a warmer & less distorted tone that reminds me of early Mercyful Fate & 70’s Judas Priest. This sound suits the material quite well & gives the album a bit of an identity in my opinion.

Stylistically, what we have here is a traditional heavy metal sound with a bit more complexity to some of the riffing than we’d heard from the genre to the time. Helstar were clearly very comfortable with the songs by now after having previously recorded some of them multiple times during their demo days & as a result the performances sound tight & the song-writing appears to be fully developed. The links with power metal are obvious in that there is very little hard rock about this record & the style of a lot of the riffs has a noticeably thrashy flavour to it without ever losing a grip on its melodic framework. Iron Maiden were clearly a big influence on the band & you’ll hear a lot of their trademark galloping rhythms & guitar harmonies here. Those harmonies aren’t always presented as professionally as their idols though as guitarists Larry Barragan & Tom Rogers obviously weren’t as technically proficient as the Dave Murray & Adrian Smith combo. In fact, I find it very strange indeed that most of the rave reviews I’ve read in recent weeks claim that Helstar’s guitar solos are amongst the greatest in the entire history of metal. That’s a truly preposterous statement as these two have very little grasp on musical theory & you see them regularly wandering well outside of the key structures of the songs which leaves me cringing pretty badly at times. I find it a little tough to look past that flaw & you even hear a bit of it in some of the guitar harmonies too which is unforgivable really. Both of the axe men have some reasonable chops it has to be said although neither is a world class shredder. You can hear they’ve at least spent some time studying at the school of Eddie Van Halen though.

And now we get to front man James Rivera….. hmmmm…. what to say about James? Well most Helstar fans seem to really love him with some comparing him to people like Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford & King Diamond but those comparisons seem to be particularly generous to me as he’s clearly not a terribly strong vocalist. I actually find his unpolished & regularly out-of-key delivery to be pretty hard to enjoy for the most part. Especially his random falsetto screams which sound way over the top. They’re simply not required & I find them to be a little bit off-putting to be honest. He really is a bit of a deal breaker for me along with the flat song-writing in many of the choruses which often drops the ball after some strong lead-up work. It’s a bit of a frustrating album for me in that respect. You’ve got some very strong riff work with a real Mercyful Fate sound to it’s dark melodicism & a solid rhythm section that’s got a clear understanding of what the songs require but all of that good work is undone by James’ vocal failings & some flat song-writing. You’ll never find a more obvious example of this than the most notorious song on the tracklisting in the lengthy mid-paced gallop “Run With The Pack” whose six & a half minute duration is thoroughly spoilt by James’ inadequacies. I mean I can understand the appeal of Helstar if I look past my problems with the vocals & lead guitar work but unfortunately those things are a bit too much for me to cope with even though I generally like more than half of these songs.

At the end of the day, I don’t think there are any real highlight tracks here which sees the few weaker numbers making more of an impact on my overall feelings than they might otherwise have done. So overall I’m gonna have to recommend that you give this one a miss & suggest that you wait for Helstar’s more thrashy speed & power metal focused late 80’s material.