Shadow of Intent - Melancholy (2019)^{Release ID: 11937}

....Be honest with me here: does this review surprise you in the slightest?

Deathcore is such a tough genre to dissect since it borrows from two of the most frustrating genre's (death metal & metalcore) to create a new hodgepodge of sound. Some bands can do it well, while most others fail spectacularly. The main reason for these shortcomings come from a place of disregard for memorable songwriting in favour of sheer brutality. Like with Whitechapel last week, they were an act that could balance intensity with songwriting, but a long layover between releases means that someone has to come along and make quality deathcore.

Enter Shadow of Intent, a Connecticut based band that blended deathcore with both the melodic sounds of death metal from both Scandinavia and the United States, but also turned out to be incredibly influential in the rise of symphonic deathcore, anchored recently by Lorna Shore. While the bands first two albums are quite solid, there is a lingering feeling of timeliness to them; like if you don't play video games (Halo specifically), you will be left completely in the dark by both Primordial and Reclaimer. A band like Slugdge or Alestorm have become remarkably dull as they hold on to gimmicks far too long, but SoI (Shadow of Intent) dropped the theme from the previous releases and made something all their own with Melancholy.

You cannot really criticize SoI for leading the listener with false expectations on the opener "Melancholy". Everything you need from a symphonic deathcore band is here: string intros, palm muted guitar chugging, blast beats, varying levels of vocal range, and of course, breakdowns. But it also has a chorus, solo and the breakdowns stay in turn with the material that precedes it. It is nice to hear a breakdown for once that does not feel like it's disassociating from the rest of the tune. The clean singing during the chorus is a little offsetting; they remind me a lot of Cattle Decapitation's Travis Ryan and is the sort of nasal delivery that I will never understand its appeal.

"Oudenophobia" is the albums "ballad" so to speak. Not that such as thing can really exist on a death metal album, but the slower groove really stands out among the rest of the album. I found it to run a little stale as if it was an obligation rather than something put on the album with a lot of passion. The clean singing during the songs chorus does not sound quite as nasally as it has earlier on in the album. "Embracing Nocturnal Damnation" is a quick and brash change of pace as the main riff has tiny little influences to bands like Vektor and Revocation and embrace this bands technical side as well. I think having these songs back-to-back is a deliberate choice to put on explicit display the bands wide range of musicianship.

I would be remised if I didn't mention the ten-plus minute "The Dreaded Mystic Abyss"; my introduction to the band. As a progressive snob, as well as not a huge deathcore fan, this song surprised me in many ways. While I do think, after multiple listens, that "The Dreaded Mystic Abyss" is a little bit too overindulgent and does not stick the landing as originally thought, I still cannot deny the bands dedication to the idea. If there was ever a point on an album to be overindulgent, this would be the place to do it. After eight tracks of varying degrees of death metal, deathcore and symphonic metal, a ten minute guitar solo with style changes and two excellent grooves feels good. This is the kind of stuff that I meant when I reviewed Parasomnia so poorly last month. The ten minute, epic, progressive guitar solo becomes far more impactful when your band hasn't littered the entire album with it up to that point. If "The Shadow Man Incident" was an outlier, as "The Dreaded Mystic Abyss" is here, Parasomnia might have had a better fate. Instead, Dream Theater are dead, while SoI impress me with their vast array of sounds and styles. Unfortunately for the band, "The Dreaded Mystic Abyss" is not actually the albums last track, and returns to something more traditional with "Malediction" and really isn't that good to begin with, so it ends the album on a really weak note.

I think it was Daniel who pointed out in a Lorna Shore review a few years ago that the symphonic elements in deathcore sound remarkably cheesy, and at some points on Melancholy I can certainly hear that. I feel like the beauty in a record like Melancholy would be better presented through passages of silence, instead of littering every moment not filled with guitar, drums and voice with a string orchestra and choir. Some of them sound really good, and SoI sound even better when the symphonic elements are complimenting the death metal foundation. It does have its moments of being too much, but some of that can be mitigated by the more melodic death songwriting. This is a harrowing album that has many sparkling moments, but coalescing them into a whole can be tricky, especially when you consider the genres that are being merged here.

Best Songs: Gravesinger, Underneath a Sullen Moon, Dirge of the Void, The Dreaded Mystic Abyss

Shadow of Intent made a couple albums based on their favorite video game franchise Halo. After that, with another new lineup, Ben Duerr and Chris Wiseman have made a separate concept album about mass suicides at the hands of a demonic goddess. So dark, so depressing, yet... so intriguing!

Until at least 5 years ago, I was never really into deathcore. At first I thought it was like standard death metal with metalcore breakdowns. The kind of deathcore I prefer is when the genre goes progressive and symphonic. I only just discovered this band a couple years ago, and eventually it has managed to grow on me. Whether or not you have heard this band before, this symphonic melodic deathcore offering will impress the sh*t out of you and get you headbanging throughout these 52 minutes of darkness.

The title opener shall already get you hooked in the first minute, as epic strings rise into metal heaviness to begin this stylistic journey. The melody is so addictive in this, you guessed it, melancholic might. And more of this heavy speed awaits as the album progresses. The beastly "Gravesinger" is a true highlight. Seems like Shadow of Intent took Betraying the Martyrs' earlier sound to a much darker level alongside some classical elements of Bach and Beethoven mixed with some of the most brutal metal subgenres out there. This might also include some Dimmu Borgir-like symphonic black metal in the middle. And the outro with neoclassical soloing before a symphonic closure is just EPIC. The Trevor Strnad (The Black Dahlia Murder)-featured "Barren and Breathless Macrocosm" practically surpasses the previous track. Insane drumming and vocals here! The riffing reminds of early Whitechapel, especially during the cinematic ending. RIP Trevor... "Underneath A Sullen Moon" was the first single to drop, a year before the rest of the album. The Dimmu Borgir influences are taken further while throwing back to the technicality of Primordial. So dark and crushing!

Then we have the brooding "Oudenophobia". And after that, "Embracing Nocturnal Damnation". 3 dark 9-letter words that fit so well together. Just like how the sounds of Eternal Tears of Sorrow, Fleshgod Apocalypse, and The Browning (without the electronic elements) all fit together like a glove in this track. When you have songs like "Dirge of the Void" that blast through in a short 3 minutes, there's no way you'll ever be consumed by boredom. As always, the harsh vocals by Ben Duerr and the clean vocals of Chris Wiseman duel with each other at ease. Chris' cleanly sung chorus totally brush aside his atrocious attempt at that in the Primordial album.

"Chthonic Odyssey" spices up the band's symphonic melodic deathcore sound with the blackened elements of Chthonic and a bit of djent from Tesseract. "The Dreaded Mystic Abyss" is a long instrumental epic, a mind-blowing monster that has hit me the hardest in my over a decade of listening to metal. I guess this could be what the DOOM soundtrack would sound like if Angel Vivaldi teamed up with Mick Gordon. 10 minutes of atmospheric, epic, and brutal genius! The album doesn't end there though, making way for one more track, "Malediction". It is a monumental gem, one of the best I've heard from this band and genre. I really am torn between whether this is the perfect ending for the album or that long instrumental epic.

Throughout the past 5 years before this review, albums like Make Them Suffer's Neverbloom and Lorna Shore's Pain Remains have been my go-to albums for symphonic deathcore. In comes Shadow of Intent's Melancholy, an epic riff-tastic melodic deathcore album to please any metalhead. I just found a new best album of 2019!

Favorites: "Gravesinger", "Barren and Breathless Macrocosm", "Dirge of the Void", "The Dreaded Mystic Abyss", "Malediction"