#VAGABONDZREVIEW: SHADE OF SORROW - METEOR

Jan 27, 2022
4 min read

Updated: Feb 23, 2022

It's always been a pleasure for me to review music. I'm fond of all metal music genres and have pretty impressive library on my phone speaking musically. There you can find anything starting with classic metal and ending some of extreme metal genres. Not a long time ago I finally magaged to choose my the most favorite one and I guess my returning readers have already thought of melodic death metal. Yeah, I can confirm that. Due to its versatility, expressiveness and wonderful ability to implement other metal genres, melodic death metal is my top favorite metal subgenre now. Speaking of Finnish melodic death music, it's undoubtedly unique because of the presence of melancholic shades what's the key factor of every Finnish song.

Today I'm going to speak exactly of what I've just mentioned - Finnish melodic death metal with dark and wonderful melancholy shades. The shade of this review is Shade Of Sorrow and their new single Meteor Inverse Records provided me with.

SHADE OF SORROW - METEOR (Out now via Inverse Records)

First of all, it worth mentioning that Shade of Sorrow is one-man-band consisting of Mika Kankainen who wrote and composed the new single Meteor. I profoundly admire this kind of bands/projects because it takes much attention to keep in touch with all stuff needed to be made. The new Shade Of Sorrow single was produced by the master Tuomas Saukkonen (Wolfheart, Dawn of Solace, Before the Dawn) who also played the acoustic guitar for Meteor. Moreover, Esa Uusimaa from another great melodeath band Crowen (I've recently reviewed their debut Prophecy EP) fulfilled the recording, engineering and mastering duties for Meteor and played the guitar solo. Judging by the set of talented musicians took part in that recording, I expect to hear the real banger.

The guitar sound in the beginning instantly reminds me of The Final Storm released by Before The Dawn last year. I must say that the intro with capturing guitar lead part included can only distinguish melodic death metal perfection. I truly love guitar led intros and here the guitar melody has the genuine Finnish spirit implying the shades of melancholy and sorrow along with heaviness and power. That's what I really admire... Thanks to guitars, you can express any feeling playing only this instrument because of its versatility and flexibility. Naturally, you can express any feelings and emotions using a guitar only to create any possible shades to the melody.

Accompanied with heavy and melancholic guitar sound, tight and fast-speed drums are empowering the entire song providing Meteor with steady basement for such mighty beginning. The rhythm guitar nicely supports the dense basement adding to heaviness. I hear the talented sound engineer work once again evaluating both the entire sound and the single tracks building the whole composition. Every track is emphasized with its own effects and happily the guitars aren't overdosed with those making the sound more natural.

After the line of blast beats intensified with palm mutes I can finally hear the vocals joining the game. Have to say I'm simply charmed with those! For the last year growling vocals have definitely become my favorite and I can't get enough of listening to the songs containing namely growling. I also like the feature added there. Now we can hear the acoustic guitar track that works so great here tendering the sharpness of the growls. Need to notice that growls themselves sound much more softer than other melodeath bands I recently reviewed. That sharped effected is mainly reached by the interplay of growls and heavy guitar creating classic melodeath sound. Across the verse, drums nicely add up to dymamics following the changes in whole pattern.

The bridge between the verse and chorus convinced me that Meteor is totally strong and powerful song. Namely guitars support the melancholic mood dominating over the song and here. It was a great decision to make it milder and more melodic with adding clean backing vocals appearing both in bridge and chorus. Those parts are undoubtedly the most melodic and attaching ones because of breathtaking shades of melancholy and sorrow complimented with irresistible power of metal. In combination with the stable and dense song basement it's so exhilarating.

That was nice in my opinion to add short guitar solo keeping the chorus mood and pushing it into the rest of the song. It greatly added up to dynamics soon caught and kept by another verse. I damn love guitars sound here in Meteor and especially it comes to lead guitar. You know, sometimes lead guitars can sound too loud or dominating the sound very sharply. Meteor lead guitar is totally opposite to that. The lead guitar is dominating the song together with vocals but its sound was properly set and mixed, so it sounds the way it should be keeping the song balance fantastically. It makes me feel amazed how detailed work was done over Meteor. Both guitars sound just in magical and totally breathtaking way it could, I would like to point out the outro particularly. It's just the hurricane of emotions for me what those guitars make! The deepness of those can't help surprising me more and more and I'm convinced the guitars are the total game changer here.

Meteor convinced me that sorrow can be really beautiful. The entire palette of feelings situated in this song created the powerful mixture of melancholy, darkness, strength and overcoming prevailing over catchy and mighty arrangement. Meteor contains both Before the Damn's fast and remarkable melodics and Crowen's heaviness and power. My overall impression on Meteor is everlasting dark addiction and thank to Shade Of Sorrow's talented and impressive work that makes me feel the same power this song expresses. Looking forward to the upcoming releases of this incredible band.