Review: ShadowStrike – Fables & Folklore

Style: power (clean vocals)
Review by: Dylan
Country: US-NY
Release date: 24 September, 2021

I love cheese. Not only the thing produced using cow milk and what not, but rather what’s defined as over the top happiness major key oriented music. ShadowStrike is indeed, a band that milks the hell out of major key instrumentation that soars into your ears as they tell you an epic tale influenced by mythological creatures and legendary adventures. Thanks to that, I quickly fell in love when introduced to them by their debut Legends of Human Spirit. Said album peaked with notes so utterly happy and choruses so utterly operatic that you couldn’t help but feel the Gruyere leaking through your earholes… and I absolutely adored that. Thanks to this, it is evident as to why I’m here reviewing their follow up EP, given how I couldn’t stop gushing over the only other thing they had released up to now.

But with great power comes great responsibility, and that is living up to a phenomenal debut with a 3 song EP. Did ShadowStrike provide the goods of a musical landscape grandiose enough to create a DnD campaign out of, or did it succumb to a sophomore slump with the depth of string cheese?

Well, to start things off I’d like to reassure anyone familiar with these guys that yes, the music itself is still great. You can see a natural progression from the debut but it is far from unrecognizable, as the way songs are structured, riffs are written, and chorus are performed is really similar to what came in their first outing. Guitars soar with notes as acute as possible, drums pound you with double bass and “boot-camp booty-camp” beats, vocals send you flying to the skies on top of a dragon holding that sword… all that power metal goodness. The opening track is an absolute highlight, screaming memorability with a chorus that will stay in your head for hours on end, with songwriting that’s intricate enough without overwhelming the listener making him unable to focus on the greatness of it all. And the other two tracks, while not at the peak of what came before them, still provide genuinely enjoyable, easy to digest but musically intelligent tunes. Are you now tempted to play the album yourself after my (very) positive description of the album? Well, I’m afraid to tell you that this was all a setup for a punchline. And that punchline comes after this ad- uh, I mean after this paragraph ends…

Simply put, all of that is massively hindered by one thing: They got the production wrong.

And yes, I know saying a band got something “wrong” is entirely subject to my views on how power metal is supposed to be produced, but DAMN if the way it is done here isn’t my thing at all. To provide further context, I thought their debut’s production was brilliant! To some, a bit overproduced (and I can say they have the right to say that especially considering the drums) but still just what I needed out of that album. This is like taking the overproduction criticism and taking it far, far too much the other way. Drums are have that “tupy tupy tup” feel from old metal records that didn’t know how to record double bass, rhythmic leads are too muffled with each other, and the vocals… they sound like they’re being sung through a megaphone! The latter is by far the biggest offender, since they were so cleanly produced before this EP that I can’t help but feel like the downgrade is massive. Like eating a good Roquefort and coming back to cheeze whiz, it’s shocking.

This isn’t particularly an EP ruining issue, but it sure as hell took a good point away from the album. Had they declined on their songwriting I probably would’ve given this a score way harsher than what it stands at right now, but luckily they absolutely knew what they were doing then. For now, Fables and Folklore is a middle-of-the-road album for ShadowStrike‘s career which has leaps of potential to become a stadium filling band.

Recommended tracks: Once upon a Beginning
Recommended for fans of: DragonForce, Rhapsody
You may also like: Maestrick
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

ShadowStrike is:
– Matt Krais (vocals, guitars)
– Sean Walls, Ryan Patane, Jon Krais (guitars)
– Jon Krais (bass)
– Cory Hofing (drums)
– Ryan Patane (keyboard)
etc.