Of One Blood

It's uncertain what the point of this music was. Sometimes, it feels like these fairly capable guitarists came together and thought, because they knew a bit of Iron Maiden and hardcore or the odd thrash from their earlier days learning the instrument, they should stitch together a patchwork of all that together. That is, without necessarily having an actual plan for it. Now granted they were fairly young here, both guitarists in their early twenties, but this comes off as a sort of routine exercise of the Scandinavian melo-death sound, minus the poetic and emotive component, replaced by airy choruses and a generally American mainstream rock/-core demeanor.

There's definitely work. The songs are busy, and the contrary couldn't be said. But between the vocalist constantly off-key on his cleans and his incessant switching between that, his ailing half distorted shouts and his gravelly barks, along with the guitars moving arbitrarily from rhythm guitars to solos, a feeling of instability and randomness creeps in fairly quickly. On the more stable sections, we're given things like big chunky breakdowns, like on 'Fleshold', the band's best Fear Factory impression. They'll throw in the occasional acoustic section, which is usually nice but given what they're surrounded by, comes as a distraction more than anything: 'Root Bound Apollo', with its fair attempt at proper composition on the intro before the acoustic picking.

So the guitars alternate between the hardcore start-stop action with barks and breakdowns or combative power chord trampling on one hand, and the melo-death type riffy excursions with systematic harmonization, and then some chorus like section with a bit of open picking (eg 'Revel In My Loss'). This could've been given the prestigious status of being "progressive", if only for the definite impression the sections are totally interchangeable. The whole thing is more like a catalog of parts they wrote and crammed together, and the album is showing off all those parts.

The overall level of those parts is decent, but they never really come out of their frame to seize the listener, even early on when this sound is fresh, and whatever effect of surprise wears off. The sections are more about exploring a casual sense of musicality, combined with the adrenaline of the heavier moments. The energy is more of a lukewarm consistency, with a few sections that do things differently. But even the vocals communicate that relatively emotionless emphasis on mere execution.

It seems fair to say in retrospect that Shadows Fall never had the best of luck. Back when they sounded like a melodic death metal band, they weren't in either the right place or playing at the right time to gain plaudits in that genre: the band were American, not European, so couldn't make the most of the receptive Scandinavian and German audiences, plus their earliest album was predated by the main melodeath movers by at least four or five years; then, when they moved over to metalcore at the beginning of the 00s, they were overshadowed by bands like Killswitch Engage, who get more credit for kickstarting the genre and have had continuing commercial success. All this sounds like Shadows Fall have lived constantly on the sidelines, yet they themselves achieved great commercial success with 'The War Within' and remain reasonably well-known today. However, I am of the opinion that they lost out in a big way and most of the loss comes at exactly the time of their second album 'Of One Blood'.

Listening to this album, the fact that this band had a whole slew of great ideas is shoved into your brain song by song, nor will you forget it by the end of the album. There are ideas to spare on the nine songs of this release and so much later music (we're talking maybe only months later in some cases) can be glimpsed in snippet form on songs like 'Fleshold' and 'Crushing Belial'. Chimaira, As I Lay Dying, God Forbid, Unearth, even some of the nu metal bands must have listened to this with excited ears, knowing that they could see a new direction that they were to pursue in the near future - it's unfair really. The reason why it is so unfair for Shadows Fall is that this album now sounds like a mash of all those later ideas, ripped out of different contexts and plagiarised to the extent of being overfamiliar and cliched. This album is to 00s mainstream metal what Hellhammer were to 80s extreme metal or what Michael Jackson's 'Thiller' is to pop and dance music of the following two decades. It's like the band provided everything, yet didn't work out what could be done with all the separate elements of their sound, only screw them together into sometimes messy, chaotic songs. 'Of One Blood' mixes together the existing sounds of melodeath, more conventional death metal, and rock-based vocal harmonies with the emerging disciplines of metalcore, deathcore, and modern metal (there's still not a name for this genre - think Lamb of God etc). This mixture is sometimes effective, challenging, and exciting, while sometimes it seems clunky, bizarre, or afflicted by attention deficit disorder.

The level of invention that goes on in a song like 'Root Bound Apollo' is absolutely frightening and shows all the instrumental players at the height of skill and daring. We can audibly hear the transformation of swift-footed melodeath riffs into slamming metalcore grooves with the mere introduction of a different type of palm-muting and downpicking or the emphasis of a hardcore-influenced drum beat. About 80 or 90% of the riffs are good and - for a guy with a slight aversion to pure metalcore - around half of them are really something worth hearing again and again. We do get some staccato parts with a chug and fill approach, but we also get plenty of hot-blooded charges and a few demonic extreme parts that really take me by surprise. The construction of these riffs into songs is incredibly tight and almost random: I can rarely predict the next movement of any given song, which gives the whole album a brilliant shot of adrenaline and excitement that cannot be effaced. 'To Ashes', for example, ends an acoustic segment with plaintive rock boyband vocals by spinning into a tremolo death metal riff in the vein of a despondent Amon Amarth. 'Of One Blood' really, really needs that excitement because the recording quality does threaten to derail the genre-busting course of the album. The instruments are all audible, but the jarring of one against the other, the many different levels of sound (the band don't so much play together as at the same time), and the dreadfully raw and ragged tone of the rhythm guitars and drums are potentially crippling to the songs. It robs the zip out of many of the bounding riffs, leaving them with a lot of bass and undistorted guitar drag at the low and high ends, though thankfully that cuts out when lead or acoustic guitars enter the mix, always making those high points.

Another little problem is the vocals, which, though clearly important to the development of the metalcore genre (and Shadows Fall really do pack every kind of metalcore vocal moment into this album), are sometimes sung in a lacklustre manner and recorded poorly, compounding the problem. I'm fairly sure that apart from Brian Fair's guttural and shouty voice, 'Of One Blood' also includes frequent additions in more melodic styles by David Germain and Matthew Bachand. These style switches are useful for the songs and are part of the continued development of melodic death metal, but the singers on this album aren't really great. The deep harsh vocals sound good, yet there is a common voice that sings in a gruff kind of hard rock manner that is weak and doesn't go well with the musical style. Then there's the cleans, which are a little too clean and choir boy for me, though occasionally those voices blend to great effect and create surprisingly poignant harmonies, especially during acoustic moments.

There are no very weak songs, and I get the feeling that the creativity increases towards the end of the album, with the last five songs being more complex and exciting than the first half. Sometimes the ceaseless changes become confusing, as on a song like 'To Ashes', which changes between metal and acoustic, melodeath and metalcore, and verse, chorus, and solo so much that it's practically bewildering, even if great in parts. 'Of One Blood' is a highly recommended album that comes with a warning - expect to work for your rewards.

Back in 1995, a 14 year old and a 17 year old got together and decided to start jamming out. 5 years later, this happened. Previously, they had released 1 demo, 1 EP, and 1 full length. Shadows Fall was a melodic death/thrash band up until this point. This album takes a different step than previously heard on their first release, the monster Somber Eyes to the Sky. Shortly after the album was released, Phil Labonte (All That Remains) was asked to leave the band, and in came Brian Fair. That is for the most part the biggest noticeable change on the album. Brian Fair has many vocal capabilities that Phil doesn't have, to be frank.

The album begins with an instrumental which is similar to the Slaughter of the Soul intro in that it is a short, 45 second swaying sound, that breaks into distorted electric guitars in Crushing Belial. One of the things that stands out the most in this album, is that all the songs are different, and yet they all seem to flow perfectly into each other. This album has a bit of everything, from true thrash metal (To Ashes) to melodic metalcore (The First Noble Truth) to extreme death metal (Revel in My Loss). 3 Of the songs are re-recorded from Somber Eyes to the Sky, these are Fleshold, Revel in My Loss, and To Ashes. These songs differ in part from the rest of the album because they are heavier than most of the other songs on the album. They also feel different, but they definitely aren't misplaced, as they flow very well with the rest of the album. Personally, my favorite songs on this album are Of One Blood, Root Bound Apollo, and Serenity.

Many of the songs on this album have fantastic leads in the solos, which are much more developed and better mapped out than in other albums. In Crushing Belial, the solo plays a nice, growing lead over acoustic guitars. Of One Blood has the longest and most complicated solo on the album. Revel in my Loss has a short 20 second solo at the end, which differs from the original version of the song. To Ashes has two solos, one of them is an acoustic solo, and the other a dual-lead solo. Serenity and Montauk have classic thrash/death metal solos. However, I must say my favorite on the album is by far in Root Bound Apollo. It is very reminiscent of a Metallica guitar solo, searingly fast, complicated hammer-ons and pull-offs, and tapping.

Overall, this album should please most metalheads, whether they like the Big 4, modern metalcore, or even extreme death metal. The clean singing of the majority of the choruses (with the exception of Revel in My Loss) brings a touch of sanity to the majority of the album, the hardcore shouts dominating the vocal section make this a much more accessible album than the monstrous Somber Eyes to the Sky. However, this is a much more death metal influenced album than a lot of their later music, which would make this much a less accessible album than a later release such as The War Within or Retribution. I would also recommend buying the 2008 re-issue, the difference between it and the original is literally night and day.

One thing from this album that differs from later albums is the absence of Jason Bittner. At the time, David Germain was the drummer for the band, and while Jason Bittner is an amazing drummer, I do prefer the drumming of David Germain a lot more. Unlike Jason Bittner, he doesn't abuse the double kick bass drum, and is much more technical than Bittner who I find is over-reliant on the double kick. This isn't saying that Germain doesn't use double kick, he just uses it when it is necessary and is even faster than Bittner at double kick. Another big difference is Brian Fairs vocals, instead of his signature scream, he does a growl more similar to Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe's death growl. Not all the vocals are done by Fair, however, as Shadows Fall from the earliest beginnings used its signature three-way vocalist method, which is exemplified on songs such as Of One Blood, and Revel in My Loss. In all the re-records, Phil Labonte's vocals are also used at point in the song. Go check this album out, I highly recommend it to any fan of heavy metal.

Despite what people may feel about the modern metal movement of the last 10 years, there is no denying that three records shaped metal of today:

1. Killswitch Engage- Alive or Just Breathing
2. Lamb of God- As the Palaces Burn
3. And most importantly...Shadows Fall- Of One Blood

Whatever these bands have done since is irrelevant. These are the Kill 'Em All, Bonded By Blood and Hell Awaits of the 21st Century. This is an amazing metal album through and through. It reinstilled my hope in metal after its demise from 1994-1999. Quite simply, when this album came out in 2000, it was such a wonderful amalgam of music that I knew metal was going to be okay. Though the concept seems old now, one minute you heard At the Gates and Emperor, then Testament and Exodus, then Hatebreed and Snapcase, then Journey and Trixter. But the key was that it worked almost seamlessly.

The album opens with Crushing Belial, which is simply musical acrobatics times 10. A wonderful death/thrash blend with black metal and REAL breakdowns. The title track essentially lays out what Shadows Fall is and what is to come. Inviting rock elements into high speed thrash. Fleshold is them at their most hardcore, and always a crowd pleaser. To Ashes is a wonderful epic that has so many layers and various acoustic passages & dual harmony guitars. Serenity is a nice thrasher, with one of those classic intro riffs.

The only downsides are the mix, which was cleaned up with the remix, so I highly advise getting that version. Much crisper and more cohesive. Also, Montauk is not one of their best performances.

Wash away the last 9 years of metal to appreciate where this boom really began. Yes oversaturation has watered down the "genre", but it happens in all music. Amazing guitar work, versatile vocal performances, and an energy that influenced a movement.

This has some amazingly bad production for a Century Media release; I have the original version of this album and I can totally understand why a remastered version was released this year, because this album badly needs it. It's remarkably static and undynamic; all mids without any real high or low presence, and it feels like the hard left and right portions of the mix were just our for some reason, making for a very uneven listen. Most of all though, the dynamic range seems incredibly compressed, as if the CD was printed off 128 kbps MP3s. I don't even understand how this sound could be achieved without that exact process, it's very bad and I'm amazed that Century Media was willing to release the album with production like this.

Getting past that (though it's surprisingly hard to in actuality), the music is okay. It's very poppy thrash/metalcore with a bit of melodic death influence, as you'd expect from US metalcore. It's not the perfectly formed pop metal that they crafted on 'The War Within', but it's listenable enough and crafted by hands with clear potential. The song structures still seem rather green at this stage in the band's career, with a lot of questionable design decisions popping up from time to time as though the band was deliberately trying to avoid taking the easy, catchy way out. It's an admirable attempt but the fact is that Shadows Fall is a band better suited at making very simple, poppy music and any attempt to deviate from that formula doesn't work very well. The only thing that really trips this album up (apart from the production, obviously) is the band not fully giving in to their poppy tendencies.

Apart from awkward song structures, this is probably some of the most elegantly combined thrash and metalcore I've ever heard, probably because the latter is mostly kept separate from or used as a slight tinge to the thrash. Many of the thrashy riffs are surprisingly well composed, with a combination of modern and slightly bay area feel that keeps you guessing. The metalcore is all right, but the melodeath additions seem rather cheesy much of the time; random harmonized solos with overly plucky, Dark Tranquillity-style bass will pop up for no real reason except to add, well, melodic death to the mix because US metalcore fans expect to hear at least a little Iron Maiden in everything I guess. Those elements really add nothing to the music and could be extracted easily for a better listening experience.

This is a decent album though not one I have any particular desire to listen to. Shadows Fall got exponentially better a couple albums from here so I can't find much of a reason to listen to this one. It's not awful but it does have enough noticeable flaws which keep it from a recommendation in my book. Of course the very idea of metalcore is enough to send many people running away screaming, but I guess this is one of the less coreish metalcore releases that I've heard, so for those looking to play an open-minded card, this is a decent enough one to get.