Label: unsigned

Producer:Chris Bell & Superstring

Release Date: November 08 2005

've had a fine time working with Superstring's manager Brenda Taylor (Talor'd Productions) on the promotion of this superb pop/rock band that hails from Dallas, Texas. After previewing the track 'Sanctuary' from the band's website, I was instantly transmogrified into a helpless shell of a man.. that is until my rescue and recovery was made possible when I received a copy of the band's incredible DVD and matching treasure chest of a CD entitled 'By All Means'. This wasn't going to be an easily hastily written review.. it was going to be an overwhelmingly compelling experience and one that absolutely had to be shared with an unsuspecting but rather lucky world.

One of the great things about this album that has nothing to do with the audio content is it's 'beyond the horizon' packaging and design. Everything creatively visual and artistic matches up quite nicely with the entire theme of the project and when you see the excellently filmed and produced DVD, you'll see that the same minds and hands were responsible for making this banquet of delight possible.

The album opens with the carefully crafted and produced Scarred. It's a track that startles and amazes from the get-go and you find yourself immediately captivated by the superb vocals and musicianship that makes Superstring a little above the realm of independent excellence. Hurtling guitars and consummately crafted drums wake you out of your present reality while the vocals and lyrics draw you closer to where you most like to be in your listening euphoria. I had told Brenda that hints of Garbage and Evenescence (when they're at their best) are occasional here and there but this is very definately the work of a singularly rare phenomenon that belongs to the band's uniqueness and individuality.

Halo meanwhile is so clever in it's delivery and arrangements that you wish you'd been resonsible for making even a fraction of it's presence possible. The guitar and bass work is the stuff of immense skill and professionalism and the vocals are an epitaph to Julie Lange's sense of mouth-to-mic perfectionism. Things become a little more magically matter-of-fact in the brilliantly written composition If You Want It, a song that firmly establishes Superstring as a leading pop/rock inspiration to any who dare to tread the same boardwalks that this band have made their own. Watch out for the way Julie's vocals pass the flame to Kell Curtis's incredibly perceptive guitar work in the solo moments... it's the stuff of greatness folks!

The Shot opens with a nicely flavoured tricking guitar and drums adventure before Julie's vocal invites even the most obscurist of listeners along for the ride that the rest of us took quite voluntarily. With a few sprinklings of casual introspection in the lyrics, what you have here is one hell of a good track with classic rock sprinklings providing the foundations for your fingertip and foot tappings. Sanctuary roots out some really smart grunge and rock guitar riffs to suppport the vocals that are equipped with enough passion and endurance to make the applause from a stadium audience deafen entire populations. What's particularly obvious is Julie's outstanding penchant for vocal diversity. Each track lends itself to the same kind of versatility phenomenon she employs in her considerations of what's required to make the song truly innovative. Julie Lange does all that with seemingly effortless ease folks!

Curious shows us a side of Superstring that's immeasurably important for the genre... the element of surprise and ingenuity. The producers (Superstring and Chris Bell) must have been walking on air after this little monument was erected and acknowledged as something a little more superior than the norm that we've all come to expect from the genre.  Elemental on the other hand is yet another track from this amazing album that really did it for me! Talk about unpredicatble and unexpected.. those guitar shufflings and drum rufflings that make your heart pound with enthusiasm and excitement when you hear great music are a firmly implanted part of your new entertainment reality now. A brilliant track that begs to be set to 'Replay All' or whatever it is that makes the song repeat to your heart's content. Underground includes a hauntingly impacting collection of well crafted lyrics and mesmerizing vocals blended with equally haunting and beautifully played cello and guitars. It's a magnificent track worthy of the highest praise and appreciation and I hope that the rest of the planet sees sense and takes note of the value of this contribution to the industry and the people like me who 'd do anything to hear something of this kind of standard of excellence a lot more often.

Just Can't Bend revisits the planes of existence, at least production wise, that made 'Scarred' such an excellent opening track. With a kaleidoscope of cataclysmic guitars and vocals, what we have hear is another one of those electrifyingly brilliant epitaphs to Superstrings worth in terms of musicianship and songwriting. I can't honestly remember hearing anything quite like this in years and there isn't really anything in the canyons of my mind that I can relate it to. It's a love of the band kinda thing that's developed here and I'm supposed to be as objective as possible but I don't care!

Roses is the one inescapable end-of-the-album track that defies expectation and that makes you wish you had another Superstring CD to follow it up with. What I like most about this track is it's driving positive rhythm and jaw dropping arrangement. It's a rare thing indeed to find the last track on most pop/rock albums deserving the kind of wishful thinking this track provokes. Where are you guys? What's next? What's your home phone numbers???

If you get a chance, check out this album at least twice and make the DVD a part of your life.. I promise that you'll be suspended by strings that lead all the way to heaven and you'll give endless praise to whom ever is responsible for dangling them!

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