Jack Starr, the guitarist who is mostly well known as the ex guitarist of Virgin Steele, although he has a long presence in discography as a solo artist with his personal bands “Jack Starr’s Burning Star” and “Guardians Of The Flame”, releases with the first one his new album titled “Defiance”, through Magic Circle Music of Joey De Maio and other Manowar members.

The rest of the band is: Ned Meloni (Devil Childe, Phantom Lord, Ghost, Guardians Of The Flame) in bass guitar and Todd Michael Hall (Harlet) in vocals. There are also many guest musicians, like Rhino who has recorded the drum parts for all the tracks except “Black Clouds Of Thanos” (in which the drum parts are played by Chris Shaefer), Joe Stump (Holyhell), who plays the guitars in “The King Must Die”, Francisco Palomo in keyboards, Lars Ramcke on guitars of "Evil Never Sleeps” and Alex Guth and Falko Reshoeft on guitars and drums respectively of "Evil Never Sleeps".

The album consists of 11 songs (in fact 10 songs and 1 cover of “Catch The Rainbow”). The compositions are all very good with an epic metal direction and they include everything that a fan of epic/power metal sound could ask for. Good and interesting orchestrations, very beautiful solos, interesting guitar melodies, memorable refrains with an obvious epic feeling and a tight rhythm section. The songs that stand out are the self titled: “Defiance”, “Evil Never Sleeps”, the impressive “Inquisitor” and “Once and Future King”, “Black Clouds Of Thanos”, as well as “Indian Nation” with its atmospheric and individual intro, one of my favourites. Generally there are not any boring or feeble songs in the album, they are all at a very high level, as well as the cover of “Catch the Rainbow”. My only objection, which (unfortunately for the albums and its songs) draws the attention, is the moderate and weak production, which makes the songs sound flat and almost weak. Even the guitars are somewhat back in the mixing process, like it was supposed to be for a low budget pop/rock band of the 80’s.

I would definitely wait for more attention from Joey De Maio, since all the other releases I have heard from Magic Circle Music were very good and fitting to the bands’ sound. Despite that, since all of you who like this subgenre (including myself), have been put up with the worst of productions in the past and now, this is not a reason to dismay you. It is unconditionally recommended as one of the best of its type and I wish we will continue to have more albums like that in the near future.