NoneThe last few days when I have been listening to A Chaos Theory, I have been trying to find the melodies, to open myself to get caught in the music. The thing is that from time to time it happens that I listen to a cd and it doen't do anything for me. Maybe I can hear that the musicians are good, and that there are some nice choruses but it just doesn't grab me and that makes me put it away deep into the cd collection. But then I take it out some time after and it turns out to be an amazing cd. The kind of cd that slowly grows on you. That is why I have been listening intensively to the latest cd from
Shadow Keep. I can hear that these guys (and a girl on guitar!) definitely know what they are doing but still I find that there is something missing. Let me try to explain...
Right from the beginning,
Shadow Keep let us know the name of the game: the first song,
A Distant Paradox, is 80's heavy metal taken into the new millennium. The guitar/drum opening riff is simple and in-your-face. Somehow it gives me a cold and sterile feeling. Somehow detached from any human feelings. This is probably mostly because of the singer. He sings in a high voice most of the time and from time to time he will go really high or sing with a more aggressive voice. He has a good range but his voice sounds a bit thin. The vocal melodies tend to be quite high and they sound a lot like each other. For me that's the weak point of the album.
The rythm section is tight, the production is good and there are some nice guitar solos. No complaints there. You don't really hear the base player but there are a lot of drum intros and and fills. The music is very guitar driven with one crunchy riff after another and a some nice rythm changes from time to time. They riffs are all interresting which they have to be since the songs rely so much on them. The songwriting is generally ok though there aren't many songs that stand out as something special.
One of the stronger tracks on the cd is
Believe. This song caught my attention even though it starts out much like the rest of the cd with a nice guitar riff and a boring vocal line. Then in the middle it slows down with just acoustic guitar and some very intimate singing. Then it starts up hard again and gets pretty progressive! Those of you who have done your homework and read about me know that this should get my attention. Unfortunately it doesn't last too long but now we got a taste of what this band is capable of. And they are also capable of writing nice vocal melodies. This is where to put the work for the next cd!
So, now the question is if this cd will grow on me... I doubt it. The cd is not bad. It is actually pretty good from time to time. The problem is that we get a lot of the same over and over again. That is not necessarily a bad thing but for me it just comes off as kind of boring most of the time. For the next
Shadow Keep I hope to hear some improvement in the vocal melodies.
Written by
Tajs Tuesday, October 22, 2002
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