review: Lunar Shadow -- melodic contemporary heavy metal from Germany

Lunar Shadow

Wish to Leave

Cruz Del Sur Music

19 March 2021

The story of Lunar Shadow began rather well. The Germans’ Triumphator (2015) was a true metal EP of shredding, legacy-style heavy/power stylings. Things were looking good with the 2017 album Far from Light, a wonderful illustration of a guitar-powered band, but some people did not like the singing too much because it was bringing the band down. Some people compared them at this time to Angel Witch from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which, to be blunt, is a way of saying that music is strong, but the singing is not quite on the same level. Say no more, and enter 2019’s The Smokeless Fires, and now things reached full potential. Equipped with a better singer, the music left behind much of the “true metal” style and was revamped into a contemporary sound, with lots of melody, shredding and more horsepower, and charging forward with a distinct, classic-style melodic black metal guitar feel and some important moments of extreme metal drumming, for an outstanding album in practically every aspect. Again, it was contemporary heavy metal in singing, shredding and production, with crucial melodic black metal guitar components, and with a bit of extreme drumming, too. In addition, the recording showed a desire to have the sound of real drums.

That brings us to 2021 and Wish to Leave. By now, this band’s audience is starting to catch on that the music keeps changing, sometimes in big ways. The new album is no different. The muscle and speed of black metal is almost all gone, and the music features a whole lot more of clean, melodic electric guitar without all the loud distortion. Thus, the music is more melodic, less riff-oriented, more rhythm-based, and the singing becomes more dominant. Lunar Shadow has mellowed out big time, but not all the horsepower is gone, although it is very obvious that they are using a lot less of it. Remarkably, all those things do not matter at all, if we are talking about the songwriting and the music itself. The newly found clean, more melodic guitar work is very good, and the songs are very memorable. They are not hiding the fact that they have good singing (hopefully, it is also true on the stage, not just on the recordings). Listeners will hear the bass guitar quite clearly, although we are not convinced that this drum sound is better than on the previous album. The music is as creative as in 2019, just in a different way. They have done it again and delivered another wonderful album.

Wish To Leave by Lunar Shadow

The Smokeless Fires by Lunar Shadow