Enemy of the Sun

Shadows

Written by: AB on 24/03/2008 23:35:13

I don\'t know how many of you guys know of Waldemar Sorychta. He\'s a producer and a guitar player, and has worked with such different bands as Unleashed, Lacuna Coil, Borknagar, Grip Inc. and Rotting Christ. He is now in front of a new German/Finnish band constellation called Enemy of the Sun. This four-piece band\'s debut is called \"Shadows\" and it\'s filled with a mixture of metalcore and nu-metal spiced with a little hard rock.

The album opens up nice and groovy with the song \"Emptiness\", which starts out with pounding drums and your ever so well-known metalcore screaming, which then changes over to some nice rough hard rock singing, before going on to some clean singing, thrashy roars and back to the screaming again. Generally, and this goes for the entire album, the vocal styles fluctuate a lot. It actually sounds a bit like mastermind Sorychta wanted singer Jules Näveri in the band just as to show off how diverse, different and progressive Enemy of the Sun is (please note: they are not). This is a bit of a shame, as most of the time the roars and the semi-growlings they have going on aren\'t that good. This also goes for some of the clean singing, though it isn\'t as bad as when EotS tries to be brutal (please note: they are not). It would\'ve been better if they didn\'t try to cover the whole vocal spectrum - especially the tough-and-hard-and-brutal end of it - but rather concentrated on what Näveri does best; the screaming and the rougher singing, as heard in the super groovy track \"Lives Based On Conflicts\" or \"Satisfied By Ego Purposes\".

Musically, \"Shadows\" has some melodic and heavy-ish riffing that sounds pretty standard to be honest. Like the rest of the album, the pace varies all the time, going from \'kinda fast\' to \'a little more fast\'. However, they do know they aren\'t the fastest and heaviest band on earth, and more importantly, they don\'t try to be. Personally, since I love awesome chainsaw work, I really think the album\'s biggest shortcoming is the lack of said awesome chainsaw work. Especially solos shine in their absence, and this is sad when the band wants to be labeled as special and inventive. The closest thing we come to an interesting riff is on the (otherwise crappy) song \"Weak\", and a little good work on \"Feel the Beating\". But I really can\'t figure out the drum work. Sometimes it sounds really good, sometimes it sounds sterile, almost like it\'s programmed. Good drum stuff can be found on tracks like \"Brain Sucking Machine\" and opener \"Emptiness\", boring stuff on \"Burning Bridges\" and \"Carousel\". I would have preferred if the drumming had got more attention during production too, because as it is now, all the focus is on the vocals more or less.

According to the band\'s website, Enemy of the Sun is \"its own thing\". I disagree. They try so hard to be special and unique that they fail miserably. This is not to say the album is all bad, because it isn\'t. Everything on it has just been heard better before. I think Enemy of the Sun should try to limit all the different stuff they\'re trying out, and instead try to focus on what they\'re good at.

Download: Emptiness, Lives Based On Conflicts
For the fans of:System of a Down, Grip Inc.
Listen: MySpace
Buy: iTunes

Release date 07.12.2007
The End Records

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