Shadow (シャドウ)

Every so often, it's hard to forget that music does not, in fact, give a damn about borders or its land of origin. Take, for instance, the massive black/death/doom metal scene. It's best known in the lands of the frozen sun, various Nordic wastes where the skies are blotted out with dozens of god and goddesses riding magical steeds. Lands where there is a long tradition of drinking blood out of skulls and surviving unrelenting winters on rotting fish. When this sludgy, guttural metal music is then shifted many thousands of miles to the east, things are bound to get interesting. Not to mention adding in an ass-kicking female lead singer with a throat full of flame. Behold! Shadow!

Shadow is a band that has never been in a hurry. Originally formed in 1993, they didn't release a full album until 2001. Then they waited until 2008 for the follow up. Much of the delay could be blamed on the constantly revolving line up. The music is certainly complex, so perhaps a psychotic need for perfection slowed things down. Whatever the case, the band's material is epic, to say the least. Not your typical black metal, they actually take time to play a few guitar solos and break things down into time frames that normal human beings can understand. They are very melodic overall. Sure, there are the usual blast beats running through most of the songs, but they are linked together by songs you can actually hum along to at times.

Nevertheless, Shadow is not for the faint of heart. They are very heavy, a bit more gloom than speed, with echoes of Slayer's chaotic riffage, some Iron Maiden melodies and even Dragonforce's guitar pyrotechnics. Also, one cannot ignore Tokiko Shimamoto's beastly vocal performance. She's got the guttural pipes of a man four times her size. While her words may be incomprehensible in any language, the message is not. These guys are 100% evil metal fury.

While there are currently no videos of their music, you can download a few music samples on their official site.

BUY SHADOW RELEASES HERE


Official Site
MySpace

Members:
Tokiko Shimamoto - Vocals
Yuichi Sumimoto - Guitars
Mitsuhiro Enomoto - Drums
Yoshio Kubo - Bass

Albums:
Shadow 2001
Forever Chaos 2008