Album Review: Galactic Empire – Self Titled

Galactic Empire claim to be the galaxy’s foremost Star Wars cosplay band, and given that I can’t think of another one I’m not going to doubt their claim, they are a five piece band comprised of Boba Sett, Bass Commander, Dark Vader, Shadow Ranger and Red Guard, which indicates that the Star Wars franchise still has the copyright on character names pretty tightly sewn up. This self titled debut album features impressively bombastic metal and rock interpretations of the John Williams compositions from the original Star Wars movies, now in a fresh offensive against the rebel alliance Galactic Empire have released their self titled debut album, with the help of First Order collaborators Velocity Records and Rise Records.

This is not the kind of album The Punk Site would normally cover, it is an unashamedly heavyweight rock album, but as almost everyone loves Star Wars, if you ignore the prequels, and this is such a ridiculous concept, that it’s hard not to fall under it’s spell to some degree, or maybe that’s Dark Vader‘s influence, it’s hard to tell. If you have any love for the Star Wars franchise, and the recent success of Force Awakens and Rogue One indicates I’m not alone on this, then there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself air drumming along to this. My personal highlights from Galactic Empire are the dramatic The Force Theme and the iconic Cantina Band, but the whole album captures the essence of the original compositions, without descending into parody.

You can’t help thinking that when they’re not trying to crush the rebel scum the members of Galactic Empire are either in other bands, or are talented session musicians, as this is a perfectly pitched tribute to some of the most popular movies of all time. You could argue that this is something of a novelty record, but as I don’t want Dark Vader to find my lack of faith disturbing I’ll just say that this is a damn fine rock album. The compositions are so well done that you can’t help having the movie scenes playing out in your head whilst your listening to it, and whatever your opinion of Galactic Empire‘s debut it’s certainly a more productive use of their time than building another fundamentally flawed Death Star that inevitably ends up exploding.

Galactic Empire is available via Rise Records digitally and on vinyl, on Orange Splatter and Black variants, here