ALBUM REVIEW: Sunholy – Shade Empire
Finnish metallers SHADE EMPIRE take things widescreen with their epic sixth record Sunholy, and defy classification in the process. Keeping things dark and nasty, they draw lyrical inspiration from the Jonestown mass murder-suicide, but the album is a broad canvas musically. Far from being boxed in by ‘symphonic’ and ‘extreme’ metal tags, Sunholy regularly upends expectations; SHADE EMPIRE are as comfortable in ballad territory as in the deepest depths of black metal blast beats.
The massive contrast between light and shade is the band’s biggest asset. Maroon, for example, explodes out the gate, a tumbling barrage of percussion and symphonic flourishes like DIMMU BORGIR and CRADLE OF FILTH at their most kinetic. Henry Hämäläinen’s howls recall Alexi Laiho’s throat-searing delivery, but before long the song transforms into something completely different. The drums slow to a classic rock pace, and Hämäläinen – who shows real range across Sunholy, even in his growls – shapeshifts into a goth crooner. The band constantly pull from disparate influences, resulting in a piece of work that is hard to define but consistently impressive. Before Maroon’s end there are tribalistic vocal passages, intense death metal riffing, and graceful moments of light that pierce the shadow.
Each track follows a similar pattern, made up of seemingly separate movements that coalesce into majestic compositions. The galloping The Apostle, accompanied by 80s-like keys, sits comfortably in a power metal groove complete with KAMELOT-esque melodies, before the band’s sinister snarls and brutality return. This Coffin An Island’s modern metal chug gives way to DREAM THEATER-like verses, only to make room for a standout saxophone solo. Six years on from their last record, SHADE EMPIRE have taken the time to fine-tune these metallic symphonies, each of which stand alone as singular epics, while coming together as an album to create a beautiful and intense whole.
Their sense of scale recalls WINTERSUN’s The Forest Seasons, a similarly grandiose suite of songs that is as elegant as it is raw. Each twist and turn feels like an emotional swell from a movie soundtrack, bringing all these conflicting moods to the fore. Some passages of opener In Amongst The Woods surprise the most by sounding like radio-friendly metalcore, but these soaring melodies lay out SHADE EMPIRE’s stock from the very start. This is a band prepared to use everything at their disposal and use every colour on their palette to suck you into their world.
If SHADE EMPIRE are a hydra and all these genre dalliances are its heads, then its body is a melodic death metal foundation. Sunholy is a tuneful record, if a brutal one, that merges atmosphere and aggression with finesse, and is for fans of symphonic metal who find NIGHTWISH et al a little on the cheesy side. Even power ballad closer Rite Of Passage features a melodeath crunch in its guitars, and acts like closing credits should, with some relief and an invitation to take the journey all over again. Sunholy is an album as much for expanding your mind as losing it to, full of evocative dreamscapes and earthy aesthetics. It’s also a masterclass in breaking through the boundaries of genre, making for one of 2023’s most epic records.
Rating: 8/10
Sunholy is set for release on September 15th via Candlelight Records.
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