Do you know Starbenders? If so, you know what it’s all about. If not, too bad…but it’s never too late to find ‘em out! We’re talking about a band that should be at the top of the charts and touring the world giving sold out shows. Attention…we are not exaggerating! At least, not that much. You see, it’s not that often – actually, it hasn’t happened for many, many years – to see a band determined to bring rock n’ roll back to the top by combining its uncompromising nature with its necessary commercial dimension. Starbenders is a band on a mission and they’re not prepared to give up easily. Especially with albums like “Take Back The Night” that comes to remind us of those times when you put on a record to listen to and you were won over by it simply out of nowhere but also out of its first opening notes!
Starbenders manage with their new opus to masterfully combine their pop/punk/goth/glam influences through a unique rock n’ roll prism. The musical basis is not stable and moves sometimes to the 80s and sometimes to the 90s without ignoring a clear late 70s punk aesthetic. And if all this seems chaotic, believe me it’s not as it’s a strange homogeneous amalgam of sounds as only Starbenders can offer us. The band fires up the studio giving you the feeling of an endless jam session but I have to underline that vocalist Kimi Shelter – just imagine a fantastic frontwoman; someone in between Susanna Hoffs and Stevie Nicks – steals the show with her commanding presence. Although the whole album is flawless, I can’t help but give a special shout out to “The Game” (by far the best song on the album), “Marianne” (…statistics have shown that a song with a female name in the title can’t be bad) and “Blood Moon” (when Motley Crue’s “Too Fast For Love” met Joan Jett & The Blackhearts).
Starbenders is a band determined to bring back all those aspects of rock n’ roll that we had missed so much but never forgot. “Take Back The Night” is an album from another era, back when rock n’ roll was dangerous, seductive, commercial and very…glamorous! “Take Back The Night” is not only the best album in Starbenders’ career but an album-apotheosis for rock n’ roll!
Highlight: The cover of Alice Cooper’s “Poison” is fantastic and fits perfectly with the whole mood of the album.
