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I was surprised to see this album come in as I had completely lost track of ShadowKeep after their 2000 debut, Corruption Within. This takes me way back to the early days of The Metal Crypt, back when I was roaming the humongous mp3.com music site (don't look now; it has nothing to do with what it was back then), looking for new bands.

Fast forward to 2018 and this new album features James Rivera (of Helstar fame, among others) on vocals. He puts on a great performance whether it's on the more melodic, slower numbers or on the full-on power metal cuts where he lets the aggression out while still remaining melodic.

Musically I like this better than I did Corruption Within back in the day as, other than "Little Lion" (I swear they wrote that one to annoy me-must be in the liner notes somewhere ;)), I found myself enjoying the whole thing even when listening to the album several times in a row. Their progressive edge is still there but is not overbearing, letting the power metal do the talking (as in, punching through your speakers). The more power metal-ish songs are definitely my favourites; the melodies fit the raw-ish, sharp and fast playing like a glove and it's just impossible not to get fully drawn into this stuff. And it's pretty damn catchy to boot. You've been warned. ;)