“Drift from all I know, get lost in the world sometimes.”
Starset factored in to a lot of how my music taste has developed over the years due to my obsession with them during my late adolescence. Transmissions & Vessels have been two albums that hold significant value to me, both musically and lyrically. While 2019’s Divisions was a step up in terms of musicality, it lacked in terms of the emotional aspects that made up their previous two albums. Enter Horizons. Clocking in at a whopping 73 minutes and featuring 16 tracks, it is their longest & most ambitious album to date. With guitarwork done by Jasen Rauch (Breaking Benjamin, RED) & drums by Isiah Perez (Phinehas, Love & Death), Horizons is also Starset’s best album to date.
Tying directly into the narrative laid out by The Prox Transmissions novel and covered extensively on their previous releases, avid fans would find a lot to uncover in the lyrics and overarching themes laid out here. Horizons takes the sound established on Divisions further up a notch while retaining the verklempt and emotive touches on their first two albums.
As is tradition, the album opens up with a “mood-setter” track, “Unveiling the Architecture”, which is followed by “The Breach” & “Otherworldly”. The stretch of these songs is the weakest on the album. The former of the two actual tracks here, “The Breach“, starts off bombastically and sets the tone for the rest of the album. Featuring crunchy and almost djenty guitars, it states the fact that Starset have followed down the sonic path of Divisions. However, it sounds a bit too much like a B-side off of that record. The latter being a ballad does not help drive the album to greatness despite the strings & synths shining throughout it. That’s not to say that they are bad by any means, though. On first listen, they are actually fairly impressive cuts, but they get put on the backseat because I can consider each & every of the remaining 13 songs to be some of the best modern rock songs to grace my ears.
I’d like to consider “Icarus” to be the true opener of the album. Starting with haunting background vocals that takes no time to transition into heavy riffs and Bates’ signature vocals. The latter are at far and away their best throughout the album. Displaying versatility with his vocal range, from adding just a touch of grit on “Infected” & “Alchemy” to the uncleans on “Devolution”, every track has some form of uniqueness offered. Closer “Something Wicked” is where the extent of his talent shines with the best of his screams jam packed into one massive punch as the album ends. As is the norm, his vocals are modulated & mixed with various electronic bits & bobs, leading to unique results. “Tunnelvision” has them sounding punchy enough to be mistaken for a guitar tone that adds a robotic flair to it.
Every single element of the album; strings, guitars, drums, vocals & synths form a cohesive soundscape while simultaneously retaining their individual identities as a layer. None sound good if not present as an entire package. Further, Horizons is the riffiest Starset has ever been. Every single passage is littered with Rauch’s dexterous touch on the guitars. The influences from Breaking Benjamin’s Ember are ever-present in them, adding to the overall heaviness of the album. “Endless Endeavor” & “Symbiotic” are two back to back bangers that lean heavily on Rauch’s deft hands on the guitars & he fiercely.
Long-time readers would know that I am not a fan of ballads. However, Starset have always excelled at doing them in a way that puts them leagues ahead of their contemporaries. “Diving Bell”, the only ballad on Divisions, was a massive highlight. Its equivalents here though, are far superior, slowly creeping up to explode into a burst of emotions. Accompanied by crooning strings, “Otherworldly” & “Annihilated Love” do a great job of pacing the album by putting in slow yet heavy hitting, relaxing yet jittery moments. Every single track is brimming with sombre & soothing violins & cellos that add in an entirely new dynamic of emotion to every song.
One of the issues with their previous albums was that a majority of the songs had an extremely underwhelming outro in order to accommodate for the “lore”. This led to the albums feeling disjointed and having no flow as well as feeling needlessly bloated from a musical perspective. This issue has been fixed on Horizons as every song flows seamlessly into the next. Some of them actually provide context for the next song. One such example is “Alchemy”. Its outro sets up the theme for “Disappear” which itselfends with an epic sounding outro carried by strings that flows harmoniously into the crunchy riffage of “Endless Endeavor”.
Horizons is a cinematic masterpiece, and Starset are the future of modern rock. Every song has something unique to offer while still retaining the core sound. Incorporating expertly crafted elements into one cohesive album, they have truly outdone themselves & are 100% set to top global charts. Despite being their longest release yet, every second has been utilized to the best of their sonic abilities. It can accompany any form of media as a soundtrack and not at all feel out of place. Over the top action? Swooning tearjerkers? Science fiction? Mystery? Starset has you covered. And as for music? Boolin Tunes has you covered.
Horizons will be available this Friday, October 22nd via Fearless Records, and you can pre-order the record here.
9/10