Shadows Fall - Somber Eyes to the Sky
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Artist: Shadows FallEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2000-05-16
Music Label: Lifeless Records
Soundtracks:
- Revel in My Loss
- Pure
- Lead Me Home
- To Ashes
- Nurture
- Fleshold
- Eternal
- Suffer the Season
- Somber Angel
- Lifeless
Free Music Notes for Somber Eyes to the Sky
Free Music Review: An excellent release, and a glimpse of greatness to come
Hit: 5 Stars
I'll admit it, it's usually harder for me to stomach sub-par production quality and death metal vocals. Since this album sports both of those traits, it would be reasonable to think that I would hate this album - but on account of the sheer inspiration and passion that is so prevalent on Somber Eyes To The Sky, those things simply don't matter at all.
Shadows Fall formed in my home state of Massachusetts (ignore the fact that I live in New Jersey) in the early-to-mid 90's in the Springfield area, which was (and still is) host to numerous exciting, new metal bands. After releasing two now-hard-to-find demos (Mourning a Dead World and To Ashes) the band released this album through guitarist Matt Bachand's own Lifeless Records.
Songwriting - One cannot ignore the inspiration it has to have taken to write these songs. In this release Shadows Fall mixes the violently brutal and innocently beautiful; rough, fast technical metal riffing is interspersed with gentle acoustic guitar interludes and intros; they even devote one track to an acoustic guitar duet, complete with a violin part and ambient rain noises, which makes up what we now know as the beautiful "Lead Me Home" (which is also known as "Risen" in some circles and sounds suspiciously similar to Morbid Angel's track Desolate Ways from the album Blessed Are The Sick - I don't care because LMH is awesome.) Acoustic guitar is a trait that will stay with Shadows Fall to the present, and it all began on their first album.
Performance - The performance is merely acceptable. Not the best you'll see from Shadows Fall. The solos in particular are ignorable, and Romanko's bass picking is uneven at times (better production would have hidden this better.) However, even though they were young at the time of this release, it is clear that all the members are talented musically, if more so at writing music than actually playing it.
Vocals - Phil Labonte's vocals are rough around the edges and occasionally even off-pitch here in some of the cleaner sections, but the energy the man has is remarkable and makes up for any potential flaws. While I do agree that he simply wasn't the man for Shadows Fall in the end (Brian Fair fits the bill much better) he is incredible in All The Remains and has grown into an extremely well-rounded vocalist that I idolize.
Lyrics - The lyrics, which would probably sound kind of cheesy their own, work well in this context and helped a lot in my deeming this album "inspired". You can tell that while some may have been simply thrown down, a lot seem to pull from the experiences of the members of the band, and they drew me in quite well.
Production - It sounds like it was recorded in a garage or a basement. The sound is oftentimes muffled. Although this does have a certain freshness to it (something about it makes it seem more up close and personal) most people will certainly not favor it. On another note about production, the use of synthesized noises (random ambiance, rain, part harmonization etc) is put to very good use and enhances the music where it appears, and all of the acoustic recordings sound clear as a bell. Why this is, I don't know.
Conclusion - Fans of modern metal will want to pick this up; for fans of All That Remains and Shadows Fall it is a must-own. Aside from the fact that the music is hard-rocking, it also illustrates very well the evolution that was going on in metal at the time and the development of metalcore as a subgenre. Casual listeners who are intrigued might be better off picking up the 2008 reissue of Of One Blood. This Shadows Fall album is remixed and remastered, and includes a couple of tracks off of Somber Eyes To The Sky (To Ashes, Fleshold, Revel In My Loss...) they sound brand new and have never been better.
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