For those not in the know, prog ensemble Star People have just released their 20-year-old lost third album with the bonus reunion fourth album Black Tie & Tales (via Hyperspace Records).

Album number three, Black Tie & Tales would tie up neatly the heart-rending, while funny, story of the first “Star People” to trace the “SACRED SIGNAL” to its home planet, with new songs ... (while on a long national tour with them, Lorenza, watching “Dream Theater” perform their headline set once in Florida, said to bassist Randy Pratt “We need more gratuitous soloing.”)

Dry sarcasm aside, when you’re right, you’re right. There’s more effort to highlight the band’s chops on this third album and some of their most sophisticated songwriting and lyrics. The future looked bright. Then, a series of the classic show biz brick walls were hit; unscrupulous management, personal tragedies, and career choices ... just like THAT it was over.

Members adapted so quickly, moving on to other bands, moving to other states, there was barely any time to contemplate the masterpiece sitting, complete but for mastering, left behind in the studio vaults.

UNTIL NOW! PEOPLE OF EARTH, BEHOLD! THE RETURN OF “STAR PEOPLE… “Black Tie & Tales” a DOUBLE album in the era of singles only, where the hook must appear in 15 seconds or listeners’ attention drift back to their iPhones, we give you an epic return to CLASSIC, BRAIN MELTING, SCI-FI Progressive Rock!

CD: The Lost Album (2001)
1. I, Starman
2. Twister
3. Space & Time
4. Marriage In Space
5. Queen Of Space
6. The White & Black
7. Where Did My Life Go
8. A Trillion Miles To Hollywood
9. Move Nearer The Sun
10. A Day In The Life

Up first from The Lost Album is the sonically soaring, and yet always melodically grounded twists and twirls of I, Starman and then comes the upright bass-led, Celtic-imbed fervency of twister, the organically acoustic Space and Time, then comes the informative, spoken word intro to the ultimate prog rock of Marriage In Space and the free flowing Queen Of Space.

Up next is the old school Bowie-esque The White & Black and the contemplative, short, but sweet yearn of Where Did My Life Go and they are in turn followed by soft rock shuffle of A Trillion Miles To Hollywood, the storytelling of the mid-tempo rocker Move Nearer The Sun, this lost album rounding out on their euphoric take on the Beatles’ A Day In The Life.

CD: Black Tie & Tales (2021)
1. Hot Blue Star
2. Twisted
3. Regal
4. Quantum
5. Wild Granny
6. No More Stars
7. The Pact
8. The Morning Star
9. Exit, Stage Left

Their brand new album Black Tie & Tales opens on the informatively designed ode to humans and the destruction we are bringing to our own world within Hot Blue Star and then the ferocious prog rock instrumental Twisted, before they bleed seamlessly into the orchestrally-charged Regal, the prowling bass lines of Quantum, and then we get the ethereally mystical prog of Wild Granny.

Next on this passionately created, heartfelt and honest new album is the at times aching lean, at others a foot-pounding rock opus No More Stars, then we get the lighter prog fare of The Pact, the album rounding out on the embracive The Morning Star, coming to a close on the seven minute, quiet piano lead in, before exploding into an impassioned, multi-colored, multi-faceted bout of mercurial storytelling within Exit, Stage Left.

Featuring:
Bill Olland - “The Teacher”
Lorenza Ponce - “Star Girl”
Paul Gifford - “Golden Boy”
Phil Weiss - “The Helmsman”
Randy Pratt - “The Ambassador”
Robert Dean - “The Captain”
Scott Treibitz - “The Doctor”