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Shadows Fall

Seeking The Way: The Greatest Hits

Written by: PP on 16/01/2008 00:52:31

A greatest hits album without a band\'s best songs might sound kind of paradoxical at first, but one quick look at Shadows Fall\'s \"Seeking The Way: The Greatest Hits\" is just that. Where\'s \"The Light That Blinds\"? \"The Art Of Balance\"? What about \"Just Another Nightmare\"? And that\'s just to name a few. Without knowing better I\'ll just blame that on contractual factors as the band has switched from indie to a major label during their career (all songs are from their Century Media years), and get on with the actual review.

But how to start a review of a greatest hits album by a band that you consider the epitome of \"generic metalcore\"? As Shadows Fall got bigger and bigger overseas, the saturation in the genre did as well, to the point where I\'ve started to think that the reason most metalcore has no identity is because of this band. Listening through to these songs really makes me wonder what made them big in the first place, because apart from a few slashing masterpieces like \"Crushing Belial\" and maybe \"Thoughs Without Words\", these songs really aren\'t much to write home for.

You see, the \'success formula\' of Shadows Fall\'s early days consisted of taking American Death Metal\'s guitar harmonies and dumbing them down into simple fretwork consisting of hooks and semi-catchy picking, and throwing on a half-growler half-screamer on top. I know it sounds like an unfair simplification of the band\'s music, but frankly, that\'s precisely what has revolved around my mind whilst listening to the record.

As you might have come to understand in this review, I for one have never understood what makes Shadows Fall listenable. To me they simply sound like they wanted to make melodic metal really accessible while adding death metal elements to it without really knowing how. The end result? Tired, cliché, boring, generic.

Download: Crushing Belial, Deadworld, Thoughts Without Words
For the fans of: Killswitch Engage, Unearth, Bleeding Through
Listen: Myspace
Buy: iTunes

Release date 26.10.2007
Century Media