Band: SHODAN
Country: Poland
Title: Death, Rule Over Us
Label: Deformeathing Productions
Year: 2020
Style: Progresive Death Metal
Review:
Trio from Poland founded in 2013 presenting here their second studio album, 7 tracks in 40+ minutes of playing time. The term Progressive Death Metal might be a bit off, but it's the best I could think of after spinning this disc for a couple of times. It is far from what I initially thought, far from the old-school growling-lead Death Metal, but also far from the melodic, overly-technical Prog Death that's being done at the moment; Shodan are progressive by their capacity to blend different genres into a resulting Death Metal release. So we're dealing here with a mix of Modern Death Metal, Groove Metal, Hardcore and Post Hardcore, Thrash Metal, Death Grind and even touches of Post Metal, Black Metal, Alternative Metal and Metalcore, all these thrown in and stirred that way throughout the audition you'll get plenty of surprising, unexpected moments and rhythm changes, which is probably Shodan's best feature, that unpredictability that makes an album great. The vocals are Hardcore-like angry screams rather than growls, and that's another trademark for this band, another element that changes listener perception, or better said expectance. A modern Death Metal that's both well-done and energetic that is gives me hope there's still plenty of room to improve the genre and that's exactly what Shodan are doing; don't trust my words, go check it out by yourselves!
Reviewed by Adrian
Rating: 9.5/10