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Shadows Fall - Threads Of Life

 

	RELEASED: April 3rd, 2007 PRODUCER:Nick Raskulinecz LABEL:Atlantic Records BAND:Brian Fair Jon Donais Matt Bachand Jason Bittner Paul Romanko
+ Stellar musicianship, great production, predictably excellent - If you don’t like SF by now, you never will	TRACKS: 1.Redemption 2 Burning the Live 3 Stormwinds 4 Failure of the Devout 5 Venomous 6 Another Lost Hero 7 Final Call 8 Dread Uprising 9 The Great Collapse 10 Just Another Nightmare 11 Forevermore

OVERVIEW

Trivium may get all the hype as today’s “thrash revival” band, but it’s Shadows Fall that truly has the blood of the thrash greats flowing through their veins, and let me tell you guys, they’ve got it in spades.  Plenty of people are going to talk trash about anything the band does now that they’ve signed to a major label, but the simple fact is that Shadows Fall just keeps cranking out consistently excellent records.  Even if they wanted to, Atlantic hasn’t succeeded in softening up this Massachusetts metal titan one bit.

            Of course, the inevitable question on anyone’s mind is how this compares to 2004’s breakthrough “The War Within”, and the easiest way to respond is simply that it’s still 100% Shadows Fall.  The production sounds major-label tight, and vocalist Brian Fair’s dominating roar benefits tremendously from the increased production budget – his vocals absolutely command the listener’s attention in the mix, and they’re scrambled, distorted, reverb’d, and all kinds of other tricks mix up his admittedly grating delivery.  Tag-team guitar duo Matt Bachand and Jon Donais are sounding razor-sharp as ever and crank out barn-burning thrash riffs and sweep-picking solos galore, and the already-airtight rhythm section of Paul Romanko and Jason Bittner has no trouble at all keeping the breakneck pace up.  Romanko’s more creative bass licks have been mostly reeled in, which is kind of disappointing to me as a bassist, but other than that, this album straight up smokes just about all of their competition with ease.

SONGS

“Threads of Life” kicks off with the leadoff single “Redemption”, and any fears of the band capitulating to emocore trends immediately get bashed to pieces in the first minute of the song with some Anthrax-esque clean vocal bits, great trem-picking riffs, and solos that rival anything on “The War Within”.  Next up in the mix is “Burning the Lives” another straight-ahead rocker with airtight rhythm work and a seriously addicting chorus, and “Storm Wind” slows things down with some serious slow-burn riffing – this one’s good, but is honestly one of the weaker tracks on here.  Fortunately, batting cleanup we have the absolutely storming, breakneck “Failure of the Devout”, an all-out thrash assault with a deceptive clean intro that drops straight into early Metallica and Slayer territory.  Definitely my favorite track on here so far.  “Venomous” has kind of functioned as a second single, and understandably so, as the more melodic guitar work still crunches hard and might even appeal to fans outside the metal camp.  This brings us to one of the most heavily criticized tracks on here – “Another Hero Lost” has taken considerable disapproval from quite a few fans, but the first thing I thought when I heard it was “Wow, this is just like Death Angel’s ‘A Room With a Few’ or ‘Veil of Deception’!”  Who the crap says a metal band can’t mix it up with a slow song here and there?!  The next track “Final Call” isn’t particularly hard-hitting, but the guitar solos are absolutely killer, and by the time “Dread Uprising” finishes bashing your face in, you have no doubts that Shadows Fall is still here to thrash and thrash hard.  “The Great Collapse” is a cool acoustic interlude and prelude to the monstrous riffing on “Just Another Nightmare”, another killer track clearly influenced by the late, great Dimebag Darrell.  Just like “The War Within”, Shadows Fall bookends this album with another straight-ahead thrasher chock full of Maiden-esque gallops and one of Fair’s fiercest and most engaging vocal performances ever.  This is one of those albums that ends and for a second you’re content to recover from the past hour of bone-crunching metal…but then before you know it, you’re hitting the “play” button all over again.

CONCLUSION

Shadows Fall has reached the enviable position of being able to crank out predictably excellent records, and they’ve got nowhere to go but up with this one.  With major-label budgeting and distribution, don’t be surprised if this band becomes even more of a household name than they already are.

 

Review by Matt Rewinski

 

 

 

 

 

 

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