Lupe put me in a pretty good mood for the time being, so this next review may be over the top positive just because of my frame of mind. Plus my day is almost over, so woohoo! Anyhow, Shadows Fall has been making music since the mid 90's. Yeah, they came out in the grunge period of the US. They're from Springfield, Massachusetts - which might be a state where I cannot recall any other band I've reviewed being from. Score to them! These guys are certainly metal through and through. Well, with the caveat being I've never heard of them before today. And never listened to anything by them before. Thanks to janis!, I've got someone new to groove on this afternoon. So if the rest of their albums sound like this one, they're pretty metal. Apparently they also take their lyrical influences from Eastern philosophy and some references to the Rastafari culture. That's pretty neat. Not many current metal bands doing stuff like that. Not to mention, there is a Pink Floyd cover track on this record - which is super awesome! Pink Floyd rules. Anyway, this album came out in 2002. It didn't chart or anything, so odds are none of you have heard this before. The goal of this record was to have a perfect balance of melody and aggression. Well, they got the aggression part down - not sure about the melodic balance though. Taking it at face value, it's a solid metal album. There are a couple more slowed down tracks, but it's still heavier on the hard side. And for that, I do like it. The ballads are cool though, and more toward my favorite tracks. This has gotten great reviews from other critics, but I don't think I share their total love. It's good, not great - but well worth listening to.
TRACK LISTING:
1. Idle Hands
2. Thoughts Without Words
3. Destroyer of Senses
4. Casting Shade
5. Stepping Outside the Circle
6. Art of Balance, The
7. Mystery of One Spirit
8. Idiot Box, The
9. Prelude to Disaster
10. Fire Burns in Babylon, A
11. Welcome to the Machine
Listen To Samples
Top 3 Tracks:
1. Welcome To The Machine
2. Casting Shade
3. The Art Of Balance
FINAL RATING:
3 out of 5 stars
they have a pretty good cover of 'bark at the moon' too on a later album.
ReplyDeletebut, godsmack and killswitch engage and boston are also from MA.
and, just saw matt the guitarist's other band times of grace last night at the rave - were pretty damn good.
Drop that band in the box. I'll check 'em out.
ReplyDeleteBah...I probably knew that. I should start noting these things.
Ahh yes, covers. I'm a sucker for covers.
You like how I responded backwards? Makes it really easy to read.