Apart from picking the cream of home grown talent who most countries outside the UK at first see the name and think “who,” Candlelight do a good job of pulling bands that are a bit on the obscure side from other territories to those of us here. Shade Empire are just such a band as despite the fact the Finns have three full length albums prior to this one they are completely unknown to me as are some of the other recent additions to the labels roster. It has been quite some time since this lot last released an album, in fact last one Zero Nexus which came out via Dynamic Arts was way back in 2008. Apart from a new guitarist the band led by vocalist Juha Harju who you may recognise from being in Deathchain and Chaosweaver seem pretty much intact. They also have a hell of a lot of new material.
I note that their previous albums are all around the 40 minute mark, this one however weighs in at an unwieldy 74! Yep so if you want to get hold of a disc that has plenty in the way of quantity you are not going to go wrong here but it is the quality that counts and do we really want to sift through an album which essentially (in the name of post-apocalyptic concept) finally culminates in a 12 minute instrumental?
From the opening bars of ‘Ruins’ it is the prolific emphasis on the orchestrations that captivate. The start of this had me not thinking of Lord Of The Rings but Game Of Thrones metal, someone has to do it but let’s get away from that as this is no Games Workshop sort of stuff at all and once it surges into the track properly there is a big black / death fervour about it somewhere between the likes of Dimmu Borgir, Behemoth and others such as our own Saturnian. The mix of brutality and filmic swaggering pomposity works well together and flings the listener off into a place that could be a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Some clean harmonies add to things and there is stacks going on, of course we are still on the first bloody song!
It kind of makes me wonder what the band sound like without all the additional stuff going on. I am sure they were not doing anything quite so blockbuster orientated (certainly not by length) in the early days and with bands like Fleshgod Apocalypse we got the chance to hear them in a more natural basics style before they hit the bells and blew the whistles. They can keep things going and attention levels up even on their longest songs such as 13 minute ‘Disembodiment.’ Starting off with moody keyboard it adds drama with a slow battering with lots of atmosphere, rather than adding vocals at first we get what sounds like radio transmission, perhaps a pilot talking into a microphone. It really reminds quite a bit of Hypocrisy and I think it is fair to say that this lot are a good match for them. Growling vocals come back in and gurgle away and the flowing, somewhat at times romantic orchestrations weave away fluidly. The epic number really does live up to its promise even suddenly adding unexpected female backing vocals in the last reel.
I really like the synth lines on ‘Traveller of Unlight’ winding around like a galaxian swarm and I have to admit that when the band go for a more compact approach with shorter songs it does them no ill-service. There are a lot more Dimmu flavoured moments in the latter part of the album and of course the other question that has to be addressed is how the band pull this off live, I guess they have to sample it all?
This was a daunting task and if it had been picked by anyone else on the review list it would have no doubt not got that much attention from me. Having spent 6 hours listening to it for purposes of review I admit that despite severe trepidations Shade Empire have won me over. Not sure how much I am going to come back to Omega Arcane but if I am in a Sunday blockbuster sort of mood, musically it would certainly be high up the list.
(7.5/10 Pete Woods)
https://www.facebook.com/shadeempireband
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