Back in my glory days of working with 89.1/105.5 WSFX FM in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, I had to play so many popular CDs every hour, on the hour for my on-air shift, as well as had to hear it every hour on the hour. Some of these were shoved down my throat by other radio stations, at live shows, in my e-mail from label execs, on the lips of friends, all over the internet...it was impossible to escape some of these high priority albums! Of them was Shadows Fall's album The War Within. I did purchase this album when it came out, and I admit I played it to death on my own, and to this day I do still enjoy popping it in once in a while. But, it doesn't really end there.
While The War Within was still being pushed on-line and at some radio stations, or at least it seemed from my time with WSFX and talking to other Music and Metal Directors at accompanying radio stations, we were given another Shadows Fall release! Fallout from the War was another album that, ultimately, sickened all of us, simply in the fact that we knew we'd be looking at another long period of every hour on the hour Shadows Fall and plenty of requests. Basically this was a collection of six songs that didn't make it onto The War Within, some covers, ande some re-recordings.
First of all, I hate re-recordings. I rarely ever enjoy them, as they typically just ruin the original. The same goes with cover songs, a good amount of time the song or songs being covered are butchered to fit the band's format, and really they don't work out too well in the long run outside of filling space. But, there was no information included about the real spotlight of the songs, and I honestly thought this was just an EP with filler. Sadly, I was half right as I later learned six of the songs were recorded but not included with the last album, and is considered a "companion" album. But, think about it. These six songs were the ones not chosen. These six tracks were the songs not good enough to be on The War Within. Instead of letting them sit around, they were released with re-recorded songs and covers to pad out a full-length instead of just issuing it as a bonus disc to a limited edition version (among the many limited editions) or as a traditional EP for a decent price without tacking on material that sounds bad and no one wanted to hear in the first place.
After one sitting with this, it was like listening to a reshed The War Within. Nothing on the album really inspired me with this album, and my fears of a padded album to make extra cash were acknowledged. Suffice it to say WSFX barely played anything off this release, as the demand was more for The War Within, and I don't blame the listeners. It has plenty of good press through the internet and magazines, but it's just one I can't stand as it's songs that the band did not feel good enough to be on the initial album and given to us in a manner that cost us more then it should have. Of course, this release is in my collection, but only because I obtained a promotional version of the album for my collection, and it was only cracked open once. Because of how weak the songs feel compared to The War Within, it's understandable why they were cut, and it was good to be able to actually hear them, but the method they used to present them to us was, in my opinion to this date, just a way to ride the success of their last album and pad somebody's wallet. But, that's only a side note to my frustration with the album, as my disgust to this release stems more to the quality of the material, and the fact I couldn't take another The War Within, especially when it was just full of songs that didn't make the cut. It was too much, and with the songs not being that great to begin with, I'll stick with The War Within and be happy if I never have to hear this album again, though I'm sure shortly after this article goes live I'll be slammed with requests to review it, so I'll probably need to hear it one last time...
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