Review: Shadar Logoth – Curse (2008)

Finding surprises in your own backyard kicks ass. No, I don’t mean finding an old Playboy hidden by your older brother 10 years ago behind the dog house, I mean a figurative backyard, in my case, the state of Maine. The reason for my surprise is simple, Maine isn’t known for producing quality metal acts mainly due to the severe lack of culture of the inhabitants of this fine state. Maine prides itself on being Maine, and doesn’t like change. Unlike pretty much the rest of New England (save for maybe Vermont), the only real cultural epicenter is in and around Portland with a few stand out locations scattered throughout the State, but for the most part, metal in any form is not a well traveled commodity. Explaining the unfortunate side of Maine leads me to my surprise upon discovering Bangor’s Shadar Logoth, a product of Maine that stands out from the rather small pack in this State as a potent dose of Northern metal.

First things first, Curse has shitty production. This is a self released album produced in some local Maine studio (I honestly can’t believe this was produced in an actual studio) which sounds like it was recorded in a telephone booth. The vocals are washed out, there are obviously not enough proper mics to record the drums which sound muddy as hell, and the guitars sound completely disconnected from everything else happening on the album. However, despite this utter failure of “studio magic”, the writing is really quite fucking good and it pains me to no end to see well written music submitted to the public in such a dismal form. Alright, I got that off my chest, so let’s get to the good stuff!

Curse is arguably classified as symphonic black metal, but its so much more sweeping and atmospheric than that simple tag justifies. A good example of a well known comparative band would be Bal-Sagoth, whose primary objective is clearly to bring its listener extreme metal that is much more epic in scale than the average band may strive to be. But even still, Shadar Logoth is actually more atmospheric than Bal-Sagoth with extremely well placed vocal harmonizing and keyboards which almost sound like folk metal at times. Despite the audio quality, its extremely easy to entertain the idea that Shadar Logoth have created something special here. There have been countless new bands that started off with rough recordings that would later become fully realized with a proper producer, and I firmly believe that Shadar Logoth can definitively realize their potential with the talent they possess. At the very least, it’s nice having such an artist I can look forward to in my backyard.

VERY GOOD

Similar Artists: Bal-Sagoth, Ihsahn, Old Man’s Child

1.    Footsteps In The Snow
2.    Here Lyes: Planet Earth
3.    Spitting His Curse With Venom
4.    The Path To End
5.    Gallows Hill
6.    The Dread Lord

Daniel Eaton – Vocals, Guitar
Samuel Denson – Bass
Christopher Michaud – Keyboard
Philip Ardroth – Backing Vocals, Drums

Self Released

http://www.shadar-logoth.com/

http://www.myspace.com/shadarlogoth

Review by CODY