Starkill are back with Death On Display, the first song from Hanging Up My Halo, which arrives on 22 January. It is their first record since 2019 and the second attempt at it.
Parker Jameson is unusually open about the first attempt. They wrote an entire album, he says, then sat down, put their heads in their hands and decided it was the wrong direction, and threw it out. What replaced it keeps the dual guitar work, the symphonic arrangements and the choruses, with everything else stripped away.
The orchestration is not a flourish bolted on at the end. Francesco Ferrini of Fleshgod Apocalypse produced the symphonic parts across every track, and Aleksi Munter of Swallow The Sun and Insomnium added synths to the title song. Jameson mixed the record himself.
Spencer Weidner puts the ambition plainly: there has been a gap in melodic death metal for years, and the band are back to plant a flag in it. Some of the material has been sitting with them for the better part of a decade. The band came out of a pandemic hiatus through Mad With Power Fest in 2024 and have been playing North America since.