Power metal really doesn’t have to carry the hideous burden of pedestrian keyboards taking the place of guitars and blind Hammerfall worship. Italy’s Screaming Shadows proves that the 80’s style of Helloween-esque power can still more vital and infinitely more important than the insipidity of the current flow out there today. Night Keeper takes us into the guitar-driven, all-but-forgotten realm that once made this genre strong and tangible.

This being the band’s fourth full-length release, they have certainly come into their own with a heavy album that seeps into every pore and infects your psyche with a stimulating foray in to past glories now artifacts for the metal archeologists to sift through with pained and beleaguered eyes. This album shows that the era the guitar album may be sparse indeed, but it’s not dead yet. With some stunning riffs and arrangements this is the very type of power metal the world has been vying for and missing.

After a very puzzling revolving door of vocalists (seven, to be exact) the current screamer Gianluigi Girardi seems to compliment the band wonderfully as his even tone and mastering of all the right notes at just the perfect times is a noticeable overall improvement. Within the sphere of the music there is no real deviation from the expected style or sound, but I love the lack of keyboards creating some false sense of atmosphere and ‘thick’ sound and just letting the guitar steer the music accordingly. If more bands used this in place of the lazy and lackadaisical keyboard sound there might be more resounding power metal bands in the genre as opposed to these disturbing pretenders and boring place-kickers.

“In the Dawn of Time” is one of the tracks that might remind me of Stratovarius in the structure and vocal melody, but that’s really where the comparison stops. Admittedly those are two large facets of comparison, but without the tempestuous opaqueness of the derivative sound housed in literally every album since the Finnish band’s Visions. While there is a stronger quality and general sound here, it does suffer slightly from a lack of originality and separation from the pack, but these little things can be overlooked when you hear powerful tracks like “Black Rain,” which is a very interesting and brilliant instrumental lead into “Night Keeper”, “Lord of a Sea” or “Planet X”.

If you’re an especially picky fan of the power movement you might not find Screaming Shadows very memorable, leaving them a culpable minion to the set standard of thin and otherwise amateurish power metal that leaves an ugly stain on the movement. If you just enjoy new music and relish the newer bands popping on your radar with some exciting, if a bit familiar tunes to whet your palate then these Italian boys will do just fine for what you seek. This is strong power metal through and through.           

TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Holy Knights
2.  Planet X
3.  Midnight
4.  Who Dares Wins
5.  In The Dawn Of Time
6.  Black Rain
7.  Night Keeper
8.  Angel Of Darkness
9.  Free Again
10.  Lord Of A Sea
11.  Cherokee Spirit
12.  Wild Horses

Total playing time:  47:08

Release Date: October 3rd, 2011
Label: Jolly Roger Records

Screaming Shadows - Night Keeper

Reviewer: Chris

January 3, 2012