Lord of Shadows – Echoes of Yore
Lord of Shadows – Echoes of Yore
Meuse Music Records / Tragedy Productions
Release Date: 01/09/23
Running Time: 42:37
Review by Oli Gonzalez
9/10
Most of my peers and contemporaries will know that I’m a fan of all things doom. Whether it’s the slower minimalistic retrograde approach to writing music, and/or prioritising emotion and feel over technical complexity, this genre just hits differently for me. That’s why I was so excited to check out Lord Of Shadows debut album “Echoes Of Yore”. My expectations were high! With musicians from projects such as Sojourner and Draconian, the line up has a super-band feel. This could raise the level of expectation, much in the same way The Expendables movie franchise was expected to deliver given their star-studded cast. Bah gawd this album delivered though! It representes everything I love about the genre, and I’m you too if you’re a fan of Swallow The Sun, Type O Negative, or other gothic doom metal acts! Led by the vision of vocalist and creative force Shadows, this one is one hell of a ride.
What makes this album so special? There’s so many individual pieces of excellence on the record, though I feel it truly is a case of the sum being greater than the sum of its parts here.
I was drawn to the variety of vocal styles. Shadows demonstrates some excellent versatility. Whether it’s the blazing mid-range growls, mourningly solemn gothic cleans, or simply spoken passages, each one adds a different texture, adding something different and an element of unpredictability. Heike’s vocals add a different dimension altogether with her much higher ethereal style vocals adding to the sense of despair and anguish. Whenever the two vocalists combine they do so in delightfully unholy harmony. Rather than beauty and the beast, this is more like…well, beauty and the beast still, but much darker and even more beautiful. Heike’s vocals were one of the things that drew me to her band Draconian, so hearing her make an experience on this record flooded my brain with endorphins, relieving my teenage years from when I discovered Draconian. Her strongest performance is no doubt on ‘If The Tears Are Forgotten’. My god, that’s tear jerking!
The band promised strong guitar lead harmonies here. I’d go several steps further and describe them as utterly soul piercing and tear jerking. Honestly, check out ‘At The End Of Our Eclipse’ for evidence of this! Particularly the final minute or so. Again, emotion and feel are the order of the day, almost as if the guitar is wailing in agony and despair. No needless technical complexity.
I think the pace of the album and songs are spot on too. At first, songs ranging at 7-9 minutes may seem too long, but this environment is needed to allow the ideas to fully mature and progress. I feel as though there’s a subtle complexity to the compositions too. There’s no clear song structure, and certainly no standard verse-chorus verse-chorus pattern. This only adds to the intrigue, however. Especially given the mix of dynamics. ‘Faith Of Thy Beloved’ contains perhaps some of the heavier sections, certainly the faster and more rhythmic passages, in particular towards the close of the song. We see some much quieter and calmer piano passages, especially during ‘Through Memories, I Gave Her Life’, and for the majority of ‘If The Tears Are Forgotten’. The crown jewel being ‘Your Blood Weighs Heavy’, acting almost like a requiem, something you’d expect to hear at a funeral or the soundtrack to the video montage of a fallen celebrity.
To wrap all these elements up is the clever use of synths in the background, again adding to the feeling of despair and sorrow. It’s subtle yet prominent enough to just about notice. Which speaks to the remarkable production on this whole album; props to Mike Lamb for this.
Overall, I’d describe this album as a journey. Never the kind that you’ll pop on a playlist at a party. Definitely not. No, more like an album which will explore some of those deeper and darker emotions within you. Perhaps places you never wanted to go, but make you feel more alive for having experienced it.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Her Lips Were Poetry And Doom
02. Faith Of They Beloved
03. At The End Of Our Eclipse
04. She Was But An Echo Of Yore
05. Through Memories, I Gave Her Life
06. If The Tears Are Forgotten
07. Your Blood Weighs Heavy
LINE-UP:
Shadows – Lyrics and concept
Mike Lamb – All Music
Aaron Stainthorpe – Vocals (all tracks except 3)
Heike Langhans – Vocals (tracks 2 – 6)
Emilio Crespo – Vocals (track 3)
LINKS:
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