Shadows in the Mirror

The tome opens to little fanfare, but what follows will certainly cause more of an uproar. Little by little the sky turns black and the wind starts to blow. The tips of the grass begin to change color as well. The animals turn their heads and look toward the north horizon, where something that we cannot see is happening. They know what it is even though we do not. All the computers, all the televisions and all our technology begins to malfunction – our ears are annoyed by loud, ringing static from every television. We hear a strange echo in the air, breaking into a melancholy metallic lead guitar. We hear the beginning of Arch Nemesis’s Shadows in the Mirror.

This album is just otherworldly in nature. Even before you listen to it, the strange, dark cover artwork pulls you in like a fish on a hook. The first chords hit you, and they are melodic, dark and emotional. The riffs are crunchy, full of a deep, pounding grind that hits hard despite not being the main focus of the music, and the vocals are a huge, deep wail, sailing over the music with an eerie finesse – as the singer’s ritualistic intonations are often ever so slightly off, subtly off-kilter and strange. They make the listener feel uncomfortable, but not in a way that is detrimental to the music; rather more of an addition to the bizarre atmosphere and hellish feel of the music.

There is a certain theatric quality about this. The band crafts twisted, ominous epics with searing leads abound, pounding through the crushing wall of riffs and the pensive slow sections with power and majesty. They make every song a miniature epic in their own right, and while Shadows in the Mirror might take a while to grow on some listeners, it is incredibly rewarding in the end. Most of this is dark and murky, but sometimes you get a more rambunctious section that comes off as blazing and triumphant. Everything is seamless. Some of my favorite parts of this are when the band lets singer Niclas Thomsen go into an acapella section and build up these cool chanting sing-along parts. How come this trick isn’t more widely used? It works brilliantly. Check out “The Huntress,” in the beginning – there’s this killer, wicked-sounding chant that builds up through a storm of odd, almost narrative lyrics, and it's so damn cool it's hard to describe. Just listen to it if you can.

Through the pounding “Forever,” which is a strangely linear song without any kind of repetition of lyrics, the band introduces the world to their style. Further songs like the epochal “Fatal Victory” and the sinister “Nemesis” expound on this – oblique melodies and subtly, slightly gothic keys clashing to create quite a unique sound that I really dig. I could give this a higher score, but sadly, the album sort of pitters out at the end, with the two longest tracks just not remaining as compelling as what came before it.

So, in essence, the shadows in the mirror sadly only remain as shadows. The band would improve with time, though.