Garden of Shadows - Oracle Moon (2000) ☠

Country: U.S.A.
Genre: Death Metal
Style: Melodic Death Metal
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☠: Selected by Buccaneer

© 2000 Wicked World/Earache Records
Reviewed by Christian Renner
Garden of Shadows is a band that hails from of all places Maryland in the good ole USA. Surprising really when you consider the style of their music would put them directly in the middle of downtown Gothenburg. Now don't get me wrong this is not an In Flames clone band by any stretch of the imagination, it's just that whenever you hear the term melodic death metal the name Gothenburg comes to mind.

"Oracle Moon" is the debut album from Garden of Shadows after their demo "Heart of the Corona" received a lot of critical acclaim. X-rated Records later released the demo as a MCD in December of 1998 and 4 months later the band signed a deal with Wicked World and in August "Oracle Moon" was released.

Ok, enough with the background info which really doesn't mean anything if the CD sucks anyway…heh. So what do you get from this band Gardens of Shadows? You get the Opeth brand of epic death metal but unlike Opeth there are no acoustic interludes or clean vocals. The music is what makes me think of Opeth the most on this release. It is that progressive metal sound that they have with memorable riffs and very frequent time changes. Highlight of the album for me was the excellent guitar work by Brian and Mary (as unbelievable as it may seem they have a female death metal guitarist…:)). The music is very complex in scope but never loses its ability to be memorable. I can't really comment on the lyrical content since I had no lyrics and the death metal guttural vocal style doesn't exactly lend itself to easily figuring out what they are singing about….heh.

Overall this is an excellent album and I think any fan of the melodic style of death metal should really check this out. It's a nice change of pace from most melodic death metal and I can't wait to see what this band comes up with next.

tags: garden of shadows, oracle moon, 2000, flac,