SHADOW GALLERY

Shadow Gallery is not a conventional band. It is formed by 5 fairly successful musicians / producers in their areas (the band is almost like their hobby, because they all have jobs themselves and team up from time to time to write and record an album) who, with a little help from Magna Carta, released this pretty decent debut. Shadow Gallery's self titled debut is, by no means, a bad album, but it is the most common kind o debut album: it is considerably raw, has an average production and has the lack of balance / constancy that you would expect from a debut (I mean, there are some pretty awesome songs and some really bad ones!).

The band seems to draw influence from the NWOBHM acts from the 70's, like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, with a progressive rock twist of course, what can be seen through the whole (or most) of the album, specially when you consider Mike Baker's vocals and their melodic music.

About the songs, musicianship and other features, there are somethings i would like to state:

In spite of this being the album where the band uses the least amount of instruments, devices or resources (specially concerning musician personnel), the guys from Shadow Gallery still were able to deliver the great instrumental and vocal work that would characterize them later on albums like Tyranny and Room V: all instruments do a great job.

However, besides the good instrumental and vocal work, not all songs that are in this album are good. The band somehow was able to put together, always in pairs, a good and a bad song, being the only exception the song The Queen of the City of Ice, which is good and has no other song to pair with. The opening, the terrific Dance of the Fools, is, soon after followed by the mediocre Darktown. After Darktown, Mystified continues to drop downward the quality of the album for being too long , but it is soon after rescued by the excellent Questions at Hand. The song The Final Hour is fairly good, but some keyboard sounds the band used reminded me of the 8-bit video-games music, what is not exactly a good thing, and is followed by the spoiled Say Goodbye to the Morning (I mean spoiled because the song starts well, but the band screws up the song right after that). The closing track, The Queen of the City of Ice, is, in my opinion, the second best track of the album and finishes the album just as well as it is opened, the song is very good.

The highlights go to The Dance of Fools and The Queen of the City of Ice, respectively the best and the second best songs of the album. The saddest moments are the songs Darktown and Mystified.

Grade and Final Thoughts

A pretty decent debut by the band Shadow Gallery, but definitely not outstanding, and deserves a grade according to that, so 3 stars seems fitting.

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