Shadows Fall - Somber Eyes To The Sky (1997)

*U.S. pressing. 

Contains 10 tracks total.

Country: U.S.A.
Genre: Death Metal
Style: Melodic Death Metal
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© 1997 Lifeless Records
Reviewed by Ultimate-Guitar.com

Sound — 10:  This is Shadows Fall heaviest album ever created, and the sound has some uniqueness of Metal music. The style blends in with american death metal, old-school thrash metal, and Gothenburg metal (Swedish melodic death metal), which creates something new which makes the music both brutal and melodic, also this is one of the heaviest metal combination I ever heard. the two guitarist Matt Bachand and Jon Dionais creates the crushing metallic guitar riff with lots intensity and brutality makes sound crunchy and heavy, and the melodicness also flows well. The drumming is like very fast and sometimes the drumming use blast beats. 01. Revel In My Loss - a good song with a cool intro, then goes into a fast heavy riffing and some parts remind me of Morbid Angel and Death style, espcially the ending, but the bridge is slow and melodic. 02. Pure - this is also good, with a cool intro and stuff, this song is very long and the songs is based on melodic death metal with brutal touch, the solo in this is sick. 03. Lead Me Home - very nice acoustic intrusmental song Similar and the nice emotional solo flows well with it. 04. To Ashes - a good and long song, but gets a little to boring, because it's kind of like traditional melodic death metal of Dark Tranquility, I'm not a big fan Dark Tranquility. The riff is mostly Melodic and acoustic parts with both harsh and clean singing, but I like the harsh chorus along with a thrashy riff. 05. Nurture - this is a killer death metal song, with a wicked sick riff and a very harsh growling and screaming vocals it's fits into the style what they are doing. The solo is great, it's a fast shredding solo. 06. Fleshold - a decent song not the type of song that they should make, well I just hate Labonte clean singing and it does kind of sound dull like most vocals sounding in the Of One Blood, the harsh vocals is good and the heart pounding breakdown and the riff will just suit it. 07. Eternal - an awesome song in this album, this is a death metal song, it's very brutal, intense, and fast The guitar work is totally death metal, it's heavy as you think. Matt Bachand doing the background vocals in this sound, and also Jon Donais adds some screaming into, also Phil fills the vocal works in, like He did a very nice low death growling in the chorus. 08. Suffer The Season - another awesome song, this is another death metal songs they make really well I love the guitar work it obviously sounds death metal because it is also heavy as you think I mean it's brutal, and Matt Bachand did a excellent job doing the backup vocals especially in the bridge, his very low death growl blow me away, at the end of the song is a killer, very fast intense riffing along side Matt - death growling, Jon - screaming, Phil - growling really fast. 09. Somber Angel - this song is a amazing long song, starts out with nice acoustic intro then the goes wicked fast, it's starts a little bit of clean singing then it jumps into a brutal death metal riffage with all 3 vocals doing death growling and screaming, man this songs shows a lot of intensity and brutality, the bridge is very sick as with the crushing riff with a very crunchy death metal sounding along side with Matt Bachand doing the very low Death Growling, Jon Donais doing the old-school death metal screaming, then after it goes to a clean singing, then a nice beautiful fast shredding solo, then it goes back that crushing death metal riff again with Matt and Jon doing the vocals. 10. Lifeless - a good sound pretty melodic and brutal, but the bridge is like really stomping riff, then comes the nice solo coming along with it.
 
Lyrics — 10

The lyrics very long, and it was written in many desciptive words and poetry. The vocals styles are various in many ways, it's both harsh and clean but it's mostly sung in a very harsh vocals. Matt Bachand does a very low death growl and sometimes goes to midrange style of death growling. Jon Donais does the old school death metal screaming/growling style. Phil Labonte of All That Remains was the main vocals that time before he was replace by Brian Fair in late 2000, his vocals was harsh with growling and screaming, and it sounds similar to Randy Blythe of Lamb Of Gods vocals.
 
Overall Impression — 10

If you like death metal and thrash metal, I strongly recommend this album. This Shadows Fall most impressive album ever made, my songs on The album are Somber Angel, Suffer The Season, Nurture and Eternal. When I heard this album it blew me away completely it reminded some bands I heard like Suffocation, Immolation, Perpetual Doom, Cannible Corpse, Lamb of God, Hate Eternal, Vital Remains, Morbid Angel, Slayer, At The Gates, Soilwork, and a lot more bands.

tags: shadows fall, somber eyes to the sky, 1997, flac,