Shadows Fall - Somber Eyes to the Sky (1997)^{Release ID: 5388}

Want me to tell you another one of my favorite metal bands? You guessed it... All That Remains! LOL, you thought I was going to say "Shadows Fall". Well I like Shadows Fall, yes, they're another favorite band of mine. But why did I mention All That Remains? Because that band's lead singer Phil Labonte was the lead vocalist of Shadows Fall for their first album Somber Eyes to the Sky. He left in 1998 to form All That Remains. Torn between deciding which band's albums to review first, Shadows Fall and All That Remains, I soon decided to start with Shadows Fall. So yeah, let's begin!

Somber Eyes to the Sky sounds quite different from their future material. This album has more aggressive melodic death metal elements alongside the metalcore sound they would later use. There are some similarities between this and Gothenburg legends Dark Tranquillity and In Flames at the time. Phil Labonte, the vocalist mentioned above, unleashes more aggressive death growls in this album than both the later Shadows Fall albums with Brian Fair and Labonte's work in All That Remains. The bass is sometimes higher than the guitars, and the album has poor production, but the songs really make up for all that.

"Revel in My Loss" opens with a beautiful nature-sound like intro in which the interlude "Lead Me Home" probably should've been put before it as the album intro. After this song's intro, it leads to the song itself, a great melodic death metal song with killer riffs and vocals. Too bad the original version did not have the solo the Of One Blood remake has, but the song is still great. "Pure" is another great melodeath song, probably one of the best in the album. It has a lot of good riffs and leads but sometimes they can barely be heard over the bass, which is a little annoying.

The aforementioned interlude "Lead Me Home" is a nice short acoustic song. This almost reminds me of that Trivium interlude "A View of Burning Empires". I bet Trivium must have been inspired by this interlude to make their own. One of the bigger differences between the two is, "Lead Me Home" has more prominent violin along with lead guitar and they sound pretty cool when played together. Then there's "To Ashes", an incredible song and probably the best on the album. The guitars and vocals both alternate between clean and distorted. For any All That Remains fans wondering, that's rhythm guitarist Matt Bachand doing the clean vocals, not Labonte who doesn't start doing clean vocals until the switch to metalcore for All That Remains. The guitar work on this song is great too.

"Nurture" is...well, 3 words: average filler track. "Fleshold" is an OK song with their later metalcore sound, but the guitar riffs are too simplistic and repetitive. Not really one of the best. "Eternal" and "Suffer the Season" are two more good melodeath songs, though not too special. "Somber Angel" is another incredible song. The first minute is a beautiful acoustic intro, then the rest is pure melodic death metal mayhem. The good closing song "Lifeless" has what might be the best solo on the album.

Shadows Fall fans should check this out if they want to hear what their older stuff sounds like, especially those who like Swedish death metal-like music more than the band's newer thrash-metalcore sound. An amazing album, not the band's greatest, but a good, humble beginning....

Favorites: "Revel in My Loss", "To Ashes", "Eternal", "Suffer the Season", "Somber Angel", "Lifeless"