{"id":36013,"date":"2014-01-03T17:23:47","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T22:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/?p=36013"},"modified":"2014-01-03T17:23:47","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T22:23:47","slug":"shadowkiller-slaves-of-egypt-cd-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/2014\/shadowkiller-slaves-of-egypt-cd-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Shadowkiller | Slaves of Egypt<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines<\/span>
\n– Senior Columnist\/News Editor —<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"ShadowkillerCalifornia-based progressive power metal band Shadowkiller made their debut in 2013 with the Stormspell release Slaves of Egypt<\/em>. The band, which features vocalist\/guitarist Joe Liszt (Rocka Rollas), play a heavier, more complex brand of power metal than their European counterparts, but with no less energy, and have a strong traditional heavy metal backbone.<\/p>\n

Shadowkiller eschews the simple hyper-melodic approach here, which is great in that nobody\u2019s going to call them Helloween knock-offs, but it means they have to deliver extra in other areas to make up for losing that easy accessibility. Instead, heavy chugging riffs and thundering rhythms dominate, albeit with a decided technical aspect. There\u2019s still a melodic side to Slaves of Egypt, but it\u2019s the heaviness that makes the biggest impression. Well, that and Liszt\u2019s powerful, Urban Breed style vocal delivery, which often steals the show. A bit more melody and polish might have helped the album, as it takes a couple of spins to get into Slaves of Egypt, but the songwriting, lyrics (focusing largely on sci-fi and fantasy themes), musicianship and vocals are all solid. Highlights include the epics \u201cHeart of Judas\u201d and \u201cThe Human Project,\u201d and especially the title track.<\/p>\n

While Slaves of Egypt<\/em> never really crosses into \u201cessential\u201d territory and probably won\u2019t satisfy fans of the more melodic European power metal sound, fans of American progressive\/power\/traditional metal bands like Pharaoh, Sacred Oath, Division and to some extent Sanctuary. There might be some crossover appeal to fans of Evergrey and Tad Morose as well. Shadowkiller delivers a solid debut overall, and will bear watching in the years to come.<\/p>\n

Genre: Progressive Power Metal, Heavy Metal<\/p>\n

Band:
\nDan Lynch (b)
\nGary Neff (d)
\nMarc Petak (g)
\nJoe Liszt (v) (g)<\/p>\n

Track Listing:
\n1.\tSlaves of Egypt
\n2.\tHeart of Judas
\n3.\tSeven Kingdoms
\n4.\tSeconds From Salvation
\n5.\tOn The Other Side
\n6.\tOn These Seas
\n7.\tA Walk In Reality
\n8.\tSavior
\n9.\tVisions in the Eclipse
\n10.\tThe Human Project<\/p>\n

Label: Stormspell Records<\/p>\n

Website: www.facebook.com\/shadowkillerband<\/a><\/p>\n

Hardrock Haven rating: 7\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Justin Gaines – Senior Columnist\/News Editor — California-based progressive power metal band Shadowkiller made their debut in 2013 with the Stormspell release Slaves of Egypt. The band, which features vocalist\/guitarist Joe Liszt (Rocka Rollas), […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":36021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10848],"tags":[2317,2491,8593,8591,8592,5930],"class_list":{"0":"post-36013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arcrvws2014","8":"tag-cd-review","9":"tag-heavy-metal","10":"tag-progressive-power-metal","11":"tag-shadowkiller","12":"tag-slaves-of-egypt","13":"tag-stormspell-records"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hardrockhaven.net\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}