SHADOWS FALL Releases Another New Song, 'Souls Devoured'
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SHADOWS FALL has released a second new single, "Souls Devoured". Like "In The Grey", which was made available last December, the track was issued via SHADOWS FALL's new record label home, MNRK Heavy. Watch the official music video here.
SHADOWS FALL singer Brian Fair comments: "SHADOWS FALL have always been a band that lets all of our influences and ideas show in our music and have never been afraid to mix and match genres within our sound. "'Souls Devoured' is a great example of that style of songwriting where we let it all hang out. It opens with a huge groove and rock riff before transitioning into a black metal-inspired verse to add a little evil to the party. Things open up into a half-time chorus that has an almost PANTERA-style vibe before we inject some melodic death metal into the bridge and solo section. On paper, that can sound a bit schizophrenic, but we always try to have a cohesiveness and underlying theme that keeps it all unified. It's a song that captures what I believe is the true essence of SHADOWS FALL by bringing in elements of our past but with a clear eye towards the future. It has familiar elements but sounds like nothing we have ever written before."
Fair opens up about the subject matter, saying: "Lyrically, the song is about finding yourself trapped in an apocalyptic event where demons and disasters have begun to consume the world. It's about fighting for survival as the planet crumbles around you, and you realize the only way to survive it is to fight fire with fire. We spend most of our lives trying to quiet the evil voices in our minds or denying they exist, but in this scenario, tapping into that darkness and letting the personal demons out may be the only way to survive the terror."
He finishes: "Facing pure evil by becoming that evil yourself. You know, heavy metal-type shit! I usually write from a personal or philosophical place, but 'Souls Devoured' allowed me to step outside of that box and tap into a dark form of storytelling that fit the intensity and foreboding vibe of the instrumental side of it. Bang your head and get into it!"
In a recent interview with the Thunder Underground podcast, Fair spoke about "In The Grey". "We're just so happy to finally release new music," he said. "We're working on a full album's worth of material, but I feel like it's gonna drop kind of in chunks and then hopefully the rest of it all at once kind of thing. We just couldn't sit on it. We were just so excited with how that tune came out. And it's kind of a different world now too, where you can release singles leading up to more songs and keeping people interested. So, yeah, man, we were stoked with how it came out and just wanted to get it out in front of people. And I'm super psyched to just be writing again with the guys, 'cause we didn't know if that was gonna be kind of part of the deal when we started playing shows again. And the writing has really become the main focus for the last year and a half or so, which has been awesome again to kind of get back in that mode. So it's killer."
Regarding SHADOWS FALL's songwriting approach for the new music, Brian said: "When we first started kind of writing music, we wanted to make sure it was gonna be SHADOWS FALL music. We hadn't worked on new material in such a long time, and once we started writing, things just clicked right outta the gates. And 'In The Grey' was one of those songs that kind of came together pretty quickly too. And we wanted to kind of have the first song pretty energetic, just come out swinging thrash metal style. It's got a big, melodic chorus, but the rest of it is pretty much just pedal-to-the-metal thrash. So, that was also — why mess around? Just come out with the first one swinging. So we were super stoked. So, yeah, everything about it was just kind of an exciting new chapter."
As for how SHADOWS FALL approached the recording process after being away from the recording studio for so long, Brian said: "This recording process with [producer] Zeuss [Chris Harris] this time around, we've done it pretty stripped down as far as we're not reamping guitar tracks a ton… Before we would experiment with reamping a million different things and combining tones and all this. This one we kind of wanted to make something that didn't sound maybe as surgical and clinical as some metalcore or modern metal's kind of gotten. We wanted to bring a little bit of thrash energy to it and a little more of a raw — not necessarily sonically raw, but just a little more live-ish approach to it."
On the topic of SHADOWS FALL's new deal with MNRK Heavy, Fair said: "We talked to a few labels, but very few, 'cause we kind of had an idea of what we wanted to do and kind of the type of deal we were looking for. So, we hit it right off the bat with them. They have a great roster with everyone from Zakk Wylde and Ace Frehley, but then also DARKEST HOUR and ESCUELA GRIND and then HIGH ON FIRE and CROWBAR — just so many killer bands. So, it really made sense. And they're kind of also approaching it more as we're signing for a group of songs where we can sort of release things slowly and then put it all together. 'Cause just the way we work as a band right now, since it's not everyone's full-time life, we wanna do it — not necessarily take our time, but we wanna make sure we maximize our time when we can get it, 'cause it's so hard to get everyone together. So, they were really willing to kind of work with us on that level of realizing where the band is at this point in our life. So that was a big part of it. And they've been killer so far."
Fair and his SHADOWS FALL bandmates have played a number of reunion concerts so far, including at Blue Ridge Rock Festival in Alton, Virginia, at the Furnace Fest in Birmingham, Alabama, and at the Milwaukee Metal Fest in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The long-running Massachusetts-based metallers, who were at the forefront of the New Wave Of American Metal scene that dominated the '00s, celebrated the 20th anniversary of their "The War Within" album by playing the LP in its entirety in March 2024 at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, the site of the band's many classic shows. It also marked the first time the band has performed in the Garden State in a decade.
(Source: www.blabbermouth.net)
