Metal Reviews

I'm not sure if you guys have ever heard of this band or not. James Rivera formed this band a few years ago, the name is obviously named after Helstar's album A Distant Thunder. There's not much info on the band available online, their website is gone now. The CD is easy to find, but not through normal outlets. You've gotta dig a bit.

At the end of the day, it's well worth finding. Helstar were one of the best American power metal bands of the 80's, so give both a try if you haven't heard them.

HOPELESS CREATOR (Video)

Nice going to check out Helstar now.

Helstar are awesome! Be prepared for the 80's production quality, though.

Here's their terrible website: http://www.helstar.com

You ever notice old bands from the 80's and whatnot have webpages that look like they were designed in the 80's? Hahaha.

The production is great, what's there to 'prepare' for ?

I like Nosferatu very much, great and unique power/thrash/speed !

Well, some of the youngins may not be used to that sound.

Mike Lepond from Symphony X plays in Distant Thunder, thats how I found out about them. They're quite cool. James Rivera is great, he sounds like a less demented version of Kai Hansen.

He's in a bunch of bands, wish he'd put out a new Distant Thunder and Helstar album, which he was supposed to do.

For a while, a few years ago, Helstar was the band I would pull out to trump my other metal friends. It is aband most havent heard of yet they are truly awesome. They are almost a progressive-thrash band with a power metal vocalist. James is a master and one of the best singers in the genre.

hrm, is that true? I don't know them, so how close are they to, say, Watchtower?

They are nothing like watchtower. They have a thrashyness to the guitars Iwhich sound very good) but the vocal lines are progressive and very impressive considering how old it is. . Rivera really takes over the music with his vocals but it never overshadows the musicianship. There arent really too many slow moments but there is a lot of melody. They have an iron maiden gallop thing going on in the basework at times but they are more technical then maiden. Picture old Fates Warning combined with Maiden, with a Halford like scream.

ah, I see. the description you give them makes them sound quite interesting.

They are very good. If you pick any of the albums up go for Helstar-A distant thunder. It is much easier to get into than Nosferatu and kicks large amounts of ass. It can be tough to find though. I got mine from ebay around 5 or six years ago for 3 bucks. You can usually find them in used cd shops. I am sure Eyesore has a copy too. He actually buys more crap than I do.

I actually only own A Distant Thunder and 'Twas The Night Of A Helish X-Mas (which is a terrible sounding live album) on CD, the rest I have are on tape. I don't own anything with a tape deck anymore so I've been trying to get everything on CD for a while now. I found A Distant Thunder on CD about 6 months ago for $0.25 at a Goodwil shop in Boston! Wish I could find them all like that. Hahaha.

I also recently found Transition by Destiny's End (another Helstar-like James Rivera band), which is quite good.

Lizard, go to their website and listen to the songs, there are like two from each album (http://www.helstar.com). I'm not sure I would call them progressive, but they do have some progressive tendencies. They're more thrashy power metal to me with some EP-era Queensryche elements. Great 80's thrash band, but Multiples Of Black (1995) is my favorite album by them, though it's essentially a CD by Vigilante—James' post-Helstar band—released under the name Helstar since James at this point was the only original member and couldn't get anyone interested in Vigilante, so he slapped the name Helstar on it and voila! Label interest. Unfortunately it's wicked hard to find. :(