The Loveless - Star Rover (2002)

The Loveless was a shortly lived band formed when Kim Larsen, Brian Hansen and Jesper Saltoft departed from the Danish doom metal band Saturnus. Similar to his situation with Saturnus, 'Star Rover' was wrote entirely by Kim Larsen while playing the guitar, synth, wood chimes and backing vocals. Brian handles the vocals and bass guitar and Jesper is the man behind the drums, plus a few guest musicians (the most notable being Matt Howden of Sieben and Sol Invictus fame) help out with violin, cello and additional synth work.

Probably the easiest way to describe this bands music would be to call it dark rock music with underlining metal heaviness with some similarities to Gothic rock, though this is quite different from your average Bauhaus or Sisters of Mercy clone and at times quite a bit more melodic too.

The songs on this release generally fluctuate between sounding a bit more faster and rocking, kinda Sentenced or Katatonia-ish, to more dark and gloomy song territories. Strangely though the more upbeat, fast and rocking songs tend to appeal to me more this time around. Take a song like, ‘All the Same,’ which is just catchy as all hell and Kim’s interesting guitar work complements it quite well. Also the bands cover of old school Gothic rockers, The Rose of Avalanche’s, ‘Always There’ is really good and much better than the original in my opinion. As for the darker songs my absolute favorite is, ‘Love Entombed.’ This particular one has a very nice chorus to it and the addition of Matt Howden on violin works out really nicely. I must also point out that Kim throws in some fantastic solos all over this record and most of the riffs are quite good and as I mentioned earlier catchy too.

Since this release there have been a few notices stating that this band would record a new album, but it seems all these years later that's just not going to happen. Nowadays Kim continues his work with, Of the Wand & the Moon, Solanaceae and his new doom metal band Black Wreath while Jesper and Brian seem to be taking it easy.

Generally speaking, 'Star Rover' is a fantastic release with a good balance of rocking songs and gloomy dark songs all rounded out by an impressive vocal performance from Brian and some great guitar work from Kim. Certainly recommended to anyone that’s looking for some dark rock/Gothic metal-ish music or those that are just interested in Kim's various musical activities.