Shadows Fall B-sides
Shadows Fall
Fallout From The War
(Century Media)
New school thrashers throw Century Media one last bone before they begin major label life with Atlantic.
Fallout From The War shouldn’t be dismissed as just another B-sides-and-rarities collection. The truth is Shadows Fall did everything they could to make this a “companion” piece to 2004’s superb The War Within, a special treat for fans before the group unleash their major label debut later this year. The six new songs here were started during the War Within sessions but never finished, so after a few years on the road Shadows Fall decided to dust them off. It goes to show how good War Within was when songs like “Haunting Me Endlessly” (maybe the most blatantly death metal material the band have written) and “In Effigy,” a song that owes its creation to Shadows’ Scandinavian influences, didn’t even get finished, let along make the final cut. The group also take two B-sides that were previously unavailable in the U.S. (“Deadworld” and “This Is My Own”) and re-record them, which gives a good idea of how far the band has come technically, especially vocalist Brian Fair, whose singing voice is finally starting to match his sinister growl.
Worth the price of admission alone is the cover (one of three) of “Teasin’, Pleasn’,” the song that (briefly) made Texas rockers Dangerous Toys a household name. Shadows Fall have never been shy about their pop metal influences, so they don’t dare treat this late-’80s anthem as a joke. Instead they play it straight as an arrow. Plus, they even dig up Toys frontman Jason McMasters to handle lead vocals!
– Trevor Fisher
Appearing: August 8th at House Of Blues in Chicago.
Click here to download Shadows Fall’s “In Effigy.”
