Shear

Breaking The Stillness

Written by: PP on 12/04/2012 16:55:39

Contrary to common belief, the words female-fronted and metal in conjunction doesn't have to result into gothic metal, although that's overwhelmingly the case in most instances. Shear, from Finland, are one such band who have diverged from the expectations and have crafted something that's different - at least on paper. Claiming to take equal parts influence from rock and metal, their latest album "Breaking The Stillness" is almost the breath of fresh air female fronted bands have needed for the better part of past five years.

The key word here is almost. While the added electronics and occasional touch on an alternative rock chorus gives reason to think they might be the answer to the style's problems, the band's foundation is firmly in heard-it-all-before heavy metal of the most generic kind. Call it 'melodic metal' if you will, but it's the style championed by so many hundreds of German bands in an attempt to recreate the Accept / Judas Priest heavy metal success, so it's almost impossible to not sound like yet another addition to the over saturated (and, in today's musical spectrum, irrelevant) style.

Fortunately for Shear, they avoid sounding like a generic mess about half of the time, so some promise is certainly offered by "Breaking The Stillness". I'm especially liking the smooth female backing sections that sometimes make an appearance, as well as every moment where the band inserts an alternative rock styled catchy chorus instead of the standard boring heavy metal vibrato stuff that unfortunately dominates large sections of the album. What starts with promise of innovation is never kept, so "Breaking The Stillness" ends up in the pile of 'generic heavy/power metal releases', which just for the past two years is towering almost from the floor to the ceiling at the Rockfreaks.net reviews department. Basically, Shear are afraid to take the final step to separate themselves from the gray mass of these kinds and transform the genre into something interesting in 2012.

6

Download: No Way Out, Wounded
For the fans of: Doro, female fronted power/heavy metal
Listen: Myspace

Release date 26.03.2012
Lifeforce Records

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