Chicagoland-based STARKILL was formed at the tail end of 2008 by Parker Jameson, Spencer Weidner and Charlie Federici.The band makes no qualms about wearing their influences on their sleeves.They combine what they love - melodic death metal, shredding guitars, blasting drum beats and the epic sounds of modern film scores - and make some of the most promising metal music heard on the North American side of the Atlantic in years.These 10 songs found on the band's debut album flow together brilliantly to create a massive opus fittingly called "Fires of Life".Produced by Jameson and mastered by death metal legend, James Murphy, the album's shrouded concept, both lyrically and musically, is overlain in medieval fantasy-themed battles, mythology and destruction.Fires of Life's artwork, done by renowned metal artist, Joshua Belanger, captures this perfectly.