Shadow at Morning
Ghosts and Legions EP

Hype is a cruel mistress. When I read the description of Shadow At Morning as a "serious metal" band with "a love of hardcore technical music that pushes the limits of human endurance", I was at least expecting something along the lines of the Dillinger Escape Plan, The Human Abstract, Between the Buried and Me, and their ilk.

Ghost And Legions is Shadow At Morning's debut EP. Much of the CD is standard metalcore with slight technical and progressive undertones. Think of something along the lines of bands such as All That Remains or Killswitch Engage. Hell, most melodic metalcore would serve as an example, as all the cliches you've heard since the early-mid 2000s are here--crunching breakdowns, predictable melodic chord progressions, chunky speed-metal riffing, "unpredictable" time changes, balancing clean and shouted vocals---you get my drift. Sorry, but too many bands sound like this for me to give a nice, "open-minded", or "fair" review.

That's not to say the whole EP is bad. I would have personally put “The Gunslinger” and “House of Wax” up first, being the strongest tracks. There are particular parts in each song I enjoyed, and the members of this band have considerable chops, but these high points are smothered in the midst of songs structures that, while claiming to be "progressive" and "intriguing", have very little to say outside of a dying genre of extreme music that should be buried now and forever like nu-metal. – (5/10)

Shadow at Morning play an all-ages show at the Viaduct in Tacoma on December 12.