Shallow the Sun - Plague of Butterflies

\r\nSpinefarm is a pretty big label to me… Just scan the list of the bands represented by them to realize the role they have in the melodic-atmospheric scene’s growth.. Shallow the Sun come from Finland, as many of the bands of the label and Plague of Butterflies is their last release just after summer’s end, pretty good time to make things a bit colder. In this EP, there is one song, three-chapter splitted, lasting for over than 30 minutes..  Just one song though doesn’t sound really nice to the fans, as big as it is, that’s why there are four more songs in this EP, songs from the unreleased “Out of this Gloomy Light”, written back in 2003.\r\n

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\r\nAt first, Plague of Butterflies sounds like a reasonably good job, after a few more listenings it becomes just another sample in the list of simply nice releases in doom-death scene.. Progressive elements in the drums, to go with the flow,  slow to death parts with creepy vocals, not bad at all times, sounds of nature to fill up some intros and outro parts, I would be wrong if I said this isn’t a good job.. It’s just we are in 2008 as I‘ve said before (even if the 25 out of 60 minutes were written back in 2003), and being just good maybe is not enough.. I m not going to reveal the release I m talking about, I remember though when I listened to electro generated trip-hop drumming rhythms in some songs of a Swedish death band, I was astonished, it was –at last!- something different and nicely fitted, giving the final result a great substance, as it’s not only the idea that is needed for something to make it, it needs to fit well! In Plague of Butterflies there is good enough song-writing but nothing more.. (how many times I’ve used the “good” word? This should say something about the quality, it’s just “good”, nothing more!). If it was a demo of an unsigned band I would had probably written the best, Shallow the Sun isn’t an unknown band anymore though. And this is something that is gonna make me a bit cruel but should worry them too about finding a proper way to expand their ideas in a way that makes them at least hold the place they have gained in the scene.. There are some boring parts, it‘s obvious they have it though, they just need to work it a little bit more. \r\n

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\r\nStavrogiannopoulos Philippos\r\n

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