Admittedly, this little blog of mine is teetering somewhere in between metal news and commentary spliced with Philadelphia spliced with Politics. Then again, that was the point of me renaming this blog after the election. Shadows Fall is now in "Writing Mode" and I must admit, I'm a little worried. The last album, Threads of Life, was basically an unmitigated disaster in every sense of the word. The album was panned by fans, the critics of the major metal outlets all hailed it (sadly), basically doing so to save face in the metal community, a costly gamble like praising St. Anger and then saying, a year later, it was crap. We laready heard the line "Atlantic let us write what we want to write," but in the end, the album came out being more of a selling out, a call for acceptance by the main-mainstream and grasphing for commercial success. It isn't bad to try, unless you get caught and it doesn't work.
So Brian Flair and the rest of the band are writing a follow-up to that disc and, frankly, they can do better than that last album. Shadows Fall doesn't have to look far at what will happen if they fail again; The end of the Metalcore movement is coming closer and closer and its hard to tell who's going to make it after the doors close. Lamb of God is a complete lock, no questions asked. Killswitch Engaged has a chance, but so does Chimera. A bad album here will mean the band will be relegated to the same type of commercial and reputation hell as countless other groups, including Metallica, Megadeth during that "commercial" period, Motorhead during the 90's... pretty much what all metal bands went through in the 90's, and sadly, they would be first on the chopping block.
That's all I have to say. Brian, if your reading this, sorry if I bummed you out and made you stay up a little more each night. I love this group and I honestly can't wait for the new one! "Redemption" was incredible! Just write about 20 tracks like that with a touch of "Another Hero Lost" and BAM! Great album! Wait....
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