 |
| ||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
| - | |||||||||||||||
| Review | |||||||||||||||
|
Shadowgarden is a Gothic Rock/Metal act that is comprised of current and former members of the Gothic Doom act Draconian from Sweden. Given that bands rather impressive sound, one would walk into this group's debut album, Ashen, with high expectations, especially with the band trying to pay homage to Finnish/Swedish Gothic Rock and Metal scenes. However, that really isn't the case here. While Ashen is well executed and a suitable homage to the styles that inspired it, it sadly takes too much inspiration from the stereotypes and doesn't really offer up anything original or unique to the style outside of a generic sounding album that is well done with some catchy tunes. In fact, you can hear plenty of influences from such establiished acts in the style, such as Beseech, Lacrimas Profundere, or the blatently obvious Lullacry, especially during the tracks that possess only female vocals such as "With Love and a Bullet". Musically, there really isn't anything too new about the recording, and it becomes blatently obvious shortly after the album starts with "Shadowplay" and "Last Summer", though both of these songs are well composed and highly addicting thanks to their catchy musical compositions that retain that metal edge through the heavy guitar distortion. However, when "Shadowplay" kicks in, the opening piece to the track sounds very impressive and lures the listener to drop their guard into believing that this album may possess something that typically isn't found on many releases, but it doesn't last long until the typical Gothic music kicks in, but, again, at least it's catchy and well done. While nothing all original, these songs offer up some tight, energetic music that will have fans of the style bobbing their heads along with the rhythm. Sadly, that's about as far as you get. Once you reach "The Whitening of Mine", there really isn't anything that will hold your attention. The rough sounding singing that is performed on the album sounds good when it starts, but theres nothing all too fantastic about the vocals here, and end up growing rather boring after a while. It's nice when the band mixes things up and incorporates female vocals, but that's very limited itself, and even her singing isn't anything to go nuts over. Both of these vocalists do have great singing voices, there's no denying that, but there's never really any extra effort put into them, sticking very close to one specific range unless it's go a little lower, as if fading the word out the word that is being sung, much like during "1:40 AM", which does feature the most vocal diversity and is on of the more enjoyable tracks of the closing to Ashen. "Murky Waters", however, is a nice little touch that seems to come out of nowhere. Vocally, the song is much diverse from the rest of the album's material, ranging from the traditional slightly rough clean singing, to a deeply sung bordering Doom Metal singing style, just an octave or two higher. The music to the song stands out as well, as this slower paced track offers up some keyboards that add a slightly haunting aura to the mix that greatly benefits the song and makes it stand out greatly compared to the rest of the tracks here. Of course, all of that said, there's only one song on this release that really showcases the band's musical talents and acts as a slap in the face to the listener, taunting at what could have been with this effort. The track "Slowmotion Apocalypse" is easily the only track that genuinely stands out as being unique, and what a track it is. The song mvoes at such a slow, depressing pace, while still retaining the guitar chords that made up much of the album, keeping the Gothic Rock feel that the album sustained from the start. However, Shadowgarden clearly incorporate a heavy Draconian influence to the music, butt it works so well with the vocal style, as well as the band's approach to this style. Hopefully, on future releases, Shadowgarden will look at this track and continue to expand on this sound. Ashen is a very well done album that showcases all the positive aspects of the Gothic Rock scene, and manages to bring in enough of an edge to some of the songs to also be considered Gothic Metal. However, that's the problem here. Shadowgarden cater to the traditional aspects of these styles too well. While the band pays homage to this brand of music, and do a good job at it, they don't offer anything new or original outside a few glimpses of good ideas that never really get pushed beyond the few moments they exist, with the only track that really offered anything completely original being "Slowmotion Apocalypse". Ashen is worth checking out, as there are some good tracks that start the album off, as well as a few track littered throughout the other two thirds of the album. Other then that, if you enjoy the style, chances are you've already heard much of what exists on this album on other recordings. |
|||||||||||||||
| - | |
 |
--
--
--
--
--
 
|