The Star Prairie Project Delivers A Full Album
A long-awaited full-length album from The Star Prairie Project will most certainly leave you feeling like you just watched a full-fledged film and the songs that span the album's course will whisk you away to different places and deliver an unbelievably robust and full-bodied yet progressive and heavy tone.
While listening to this album can take in all these different layers and levels of influences that inspired this to become something in the first place and you get the sounds of classic rock, alternative rock, melodic and progressive metal, and loads more just messing together and giving you this huge and almost conceptual album where the songs have ways of touching base with each other and to get the full experience, you need to listen to the entire album as a whole.
The record is called The Shining Ones, and with each song on the release, you are getting a sort of different story that feeds into the backbone of the whole record which in actuality does indeed make this a concept record.
Aside from that fact, listening to this whole album is something that you should be doing especially if you are into progressive rock or metal because by listening to only one or two tracks you're not getting the full spectrum of what the album has to offer.
This album is very connective and each song has a little bit of a different side of songwriting that shows face.
Sometimes you get gigantic and melodious harmonies with vocals that sound like a choir and that's the element that leaves such a big impact while other times it's a sonically driving guitar riff that takes the song to a new level or grabs at you.
The depth of not only the storytelling but the musicianship on this record is astounding and there's so much to be heard throughout this hour-long opus of an album that you need to set some time aside to dive into it and dig through it because it is indeed very expansive in its own right.
"The concept of the album emerged over the winter of 2023. We literally started from scratch with a clean slate. We wanted to write a concept album that musically expressed the lore and intrigue of this fascinating esoteric subject. The subject of this pre-diluvian society of ancient shamanic priests. Just the fact that we are discussing the subject forces us to expand the boundaries of our firmly established core beliefs. The thought that somehow there may have been others that existed alongside of us in the ancient past that were not human as we know it. Mysterious advanced beings that were human like, but not quite human. These people helped us repeatedly over time and emerged from the seas in ancient lore to assist humanity after the cataclysm and may have had am role in our creation. They were known as Angels, Annunaki, Elohim, Watchers, Feathered serpents. They were known as Gods. They were known as The Shining Ones in many different languages. They appear in fragments of the Bible and extensively in The Book of Enoch. The topic fell in my lap through a series of synchronicities, and I became fascinated with the subject once I started looking into it. I would meditate before a writing session and pick up my guitar and see what came flowing to me out of that relaxed state. And flow it did and the result is the thirteen-song concept album, 'The Shining Ones" - Nolen R. Chew Jr.
The entire project is helmed by Nolen R. Chew Jr. who is a songwriter from Star Prairie Wisconsin which of course is where the name comes from, and his whole mission was to be able to write original songs and bring them to fruition with the help of collaborations from other people, especially vocalists.
The release of this LP is proof that Nolen's Mission has been accomplished because this is one huge set of songs and everything is done with pristine attention to the mix, the composition, and the arrangement.
An intense and strong album that hits many flavors in the heavy or hard rock genre and leaves you fully satiated.
Everyone who's into heavier music will dig this but musicians, guitar players, and songwriters who are into heavy music are going to be blown away by this.
Set aside some time and listen to the full album of The Shining Ones from The Star Prairie Project right now.
You can listen to the album on the Spotify, and learn plenty more about the project on Instagram or the official Website.
