Shining Star - Enter Eternity

*=Staff's pick	Nightmare Insanity* From Now On* Dangerous Game Insomnia Never Too Late Just A Man No More* Lady Of The Night Travel Through Time

Genre	Melodic Metal	Lance King	Vocals
Tracks	10	Fabio Rocha	Guitar
Runningtime	47 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Nightmare Records	Kuky Sanchez	Bass
Release	21 Feb. 2006	Juliano Sanchez	Drums
Country	Brazil/USA	Dinno Zampier	Keyboards
Similar artists	Silent Force, Balance Of Power

Shining Star is the brainchild of Brazilian guitarist Fabio Rocha. In 2001 he decided to release his first album that included vocals under the moniker Fabio Rocha's Shining Star. To handle the vocals his countryman Nando Fernandos was hired and the album received great reviews internationally even though it was only released officially on Megahard Records in Brazil. Two years later Lance King was, after leaving Balance Of Power, asked if he would like to record an album with Fabio. Lance accepted and the album was done but due to problems with their record company the release was postponed. In the meantime Lance has recorded two albums with the Danish band Pyramaze. Now three years later the problems are sorted out and the album can finally see the light of day.

Enter Eternity is basically a quite straight forward melodic metal album with traces of progressive metal. It's quite obvious that Fabio and Lance are the main characters in Shining Star. In fact, this is probably the best vocal delivery I have heard from Lance and that speaks for itself. They could definitely have chosen a better album opener than Nightmare since I rank it as one of the weakest tracks on Enter Eternity. With Insanity the quality level is increased a lot and the album is peaked with the next song. From Now On is simply put a killer track with fantastic melodies and the keyboard orchestration used fits the song perfectly. Apart from this brilliant song I find the album quite solid and the compositions tend to be on the positive side of my liking without reaching the highest highs. The somewhat muddy production is definitely one of the things that could have been better, a clearer sound with a bit more punch would have given the songs a push in the right direction I believe.

After a couple of spins Enter Eternity really grew on me and it is only the poor production and a few more killer tracks that keeps the album from receiving a higher grade. Fans of Lance King can buy this blind folded as a perfect warm up for the upcoming Pyramaze album.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
6	9	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Hawk