Mizar – The King of the Stars

Mizar – The King of the Stars / 2005 Self / 13 Tracks / http://www.mizar.us / [email protected] / Reviewed 26 September 2005

Mizar starts off “The King of the Stars” with a synthesizer track that mixes together Nintendo midis with traditional "gothic” and dance beats. However salvageable the beat was (for it was not the cutting edge of innovation), Mizar’s own vocals, overbearing and poorly recorded really cast the track further down in ignominy. “Out of Control” is an early track that shows a minor amount of movement to the positive end of things; it is still the fact that the track’s one catchy hook is driven to the ground as Mizar repeats it a total of about one hundred times.

Starting off “Now You Know, I Wanna” with a set of vocals that are closer to the acceptable “operatic” range of things, the only thing that really holds back Mizar during the track is the difference in quality between the vocals and the synthesizers. While the track quickly drops all pretense of operatic sanctity for a Nuevo-country sound (and a sped-up set of vocals), Mizar finds eirself on the cusp of having a successful track. There is a list of individuals that are able to incorporate opera and other classical styles nearly perfectly to a more current sound, so what Mizar does on “The King Of The Stars” is nothing new. It is the general tendency for “The King of the Stars” that the disc takes a positive turn when the old opera style and the newer synthesizer-laced sound are kept relatively separate; when they are meshed together, it seems much more likely that the track will attempt to do too much and fail.

Another major factor that tends to weaken “The King of the Stars” is the extended track lengths of the tracks on the disc; while Mizar’s tone and quality of voice do not wave much during the longer track, the fact is that most tracks on the album do not vary themselves enough to keep listener’s interest. A notable exception to that rule happens in “Infernal Game” where Mizar does clearly delineate different sections in the track to different-sounding outputs. Overall, the disc seems a little stronger this listen compared to Mizar’s first try wit “The King of the Stars”; there are some major issues that really must be removed before Mizar can honestly be said to create an all-encompassing, good album (issues like the tremendous differences in quality between voices and synths), but there seems to be some definite move towards that goal.

Top Tracks: That Polish Girl, Out of Control

Rating: 4.3/10