Australia, Nuclear War Now! Productions
— Project based booking by Daniel at daniel@killtownbookings.com
They’re basically Australia’s extremely cult response to Rush, Atheist, Death but also to Incantation and Demilich, if this makes sense.’ Metal Archives. Over twenty-five years ago, in Adelaide, Australia, guitarist Denny Blake (Martire, Cauldron Black Ram, Misery’s Omen) founded StarGazer after the inital demise of the short-lived but locally influential death metal band, Intellect Devourer, along with bassist Damon Good (Mournful Congregation, Cauldron Black Ram, Martire). From the outset, the union of Blake (aka The Serpent Inquisitor) and Good (aka The Great Righteous Destroyer) was alchemical, a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The band’s earliest recordings from the mid- 1990s can best be described as black/death metal, evincing a rare combination of sophistication and ferocity and imbued with the frenzied, manic sound common to many of StarGazer’s Australian peers. In their first decade, StarGazer maintained a deliberately sparse yet flawless catalog, with just a handful of releases to their name. It wasn’t until 2005 that the band’s debut album The Scream That Tore the Sky came out. By then, their style had evolved tremendously, mutating into a sound that was brutal without redundancy, experimental without pretension, and technical without sterility. With their next two albums, A Great Work of Ages and A Merging to the Boundless, the breadth of the band’s palate increased dramatically, making StarGazer one of the most genuinely groundbreaking bands in metal. Their sound runs the gamut— executed with unparalleled agility, reckless and feral assaults dissolve into delicate, crystalline passages conjuring some otherworldly element. Blake’s and Good’s extraordinary musicianship and faithful dedication to the spirit of metal has made them uniquely positioned to explore the perimeter of the genre, where they create consistently provocative music without straying so far outside the lines as to dilute or compromise the band’s stylistic integrity. The lyrical and thematic concepts undergirding the music are equally refined, frequently exploring myriad forms of occult knowledge with an emphasis on Occidental and Oriental mysticism. Live, StarGazer are nothing short of awe-inspiring. The helical coil of the guitar and serpentine bass, each animated and independent, wind around the ecstatic tumult of percussion, summoned together in a way that almost defies belief. This year, StarGazer will tour Europe for the 2nd time with support by U.S. deathrash legends, Ares Kingdom. A brand new album from the band will also be forthcoming prior to the tour.