Starch is a loudmouth four-piece from the Bay Area (US). Basically, Starch mix loud in your face metal with low tuned grooves and dash it up with vocal lines brought to us by 3 singers. It’s a diverse sound from time to time with very catchy riffs. The quality of the overall album however is mediocre and depends very much on who’s singing. A constant harsh and never ending ride on the cymbals (my ears are still bleeding) takes away any doubts on the quality of the production. Not all the vocals on the album are convincing however. They scream, sing, grunt and even try to rap adding little fuel to the fire. Titles like ‘Drunk Son-Of-A-Bitch’, ‘Whore’ and ‘Doublefisted’ give you an idea of the topics present on the album.

Starch’ sound reminds me a little of the band Killgore.

And if you listen closely you’ll detect a little Black Label Society (and yes, they use the Zakk Wylde squeal). In spite of a few very nice hooks and ideas (something tells me there’s more than beer in this bottle called Starch) they don’t reach the quality level of the aforementioned bands. Personally I don’t think Starch is out there hunting for commercial success, they’re just looking for a good time and I have no doubt that Starch are a great live band. Their material however is not convincing enough and the competition in the modern metal trenches is tough. With the current material they will lose the competition although something tells me they couldn’t care less.