Not sure why, but I feel like I always have to defend myself when expressing the fact that I enjoy this album. This strange xenophobia in metal fandom has been perplexing me for a while now. I rode the deathcore bashing train at first but not just because everybody was doing it, but more because by dumb luck I'd only heard bad deathcore bands first. It was kind of equatable to somebody listening to several bedroom bm artists and coming to the conclusion that black metal must suck. Yeah, Emmure and Suffokate and Suicide Silence and whatnot are garbage but Burning the Masses and The Browning exist and they rock just fine. Still, the fact that these Californian dudes in Shadow of the Colossus carry that patented overdone production job and sport a few breakdowns here and there means that they get lumped in as an abomination upon metal along with other bands who don't deserve the dubious honor amongst the equal amount who actually are.
So yes, the deathcore cliches are here, but they aren't as overdone or grating as the genre's worst. For example, there's that production job I mentioned. It seems like every deathcore band gets the same fucking producer because despite peeling away enough layers of the genre to find the true gems and beacons of creativity within it, I'm still hard pressed to find too many albums that don't carry the same general sound and tone. It's a bit hard for me to describe, but the drums are pushed way up to the front and are prone to the cymbals clipping, the guitars have a beastly bottom end and an overwhelming amount of crunch, and the vocals are heavily prominent at the same time. Basically, dynamics go out the window and every member fights for the spotlight. It can get to be a bit much during the blasting sections at times but I feel it really helps add to the frantic pace at the same time. The vocalist is pretty standard, switching between high growls and low roars, double layering the two styles a good amount of the time.
One of the reasons Shadow of the Colossus stands out (apart from being named after one of the best video games ever made (seriously, put down Call of Duty and go pick it up, like right the fuck now)) is because of how varied it is. I'm a huge proponent of "find something you're good at and don't fuck around with it", but if you're good at quite a few different ideas, then by all means mix it up. Shadow of the Colossus is good at a few different things, and each track really hammers that home. There are blasty speedfest numbers in "Constructing Ultimate Destruction" and "Serve the Death Sentence", slower, grinding, breakdown heavy tracks like "Labor, the Enslaver" and "The Grove", and an overt and powerful melody that permeates through "Instrumental" and "Losing Sensation of Dimensions". That melody is actually fairly prominent throughout most of the album, emulating a less technically proficient Decrepit Birth in lead style. Unfortunately, no tracks really stand out as the best but the album doesn't really feel like one greater piece of work as a whole either. The songwriting is certainly good, but I feel like they haven't truly broken out into their own style yet, and as such are stuck with the title of "Best Generic Band". The talent is there, the ear for melody is there, but it's still missing something.
Despite my generally lukewarm sentiments, I do really like Shadow of the Colossus and would recommend them to both fans of deathcore and people like me who are just trying to explore this supposed bastard genre. Everything is solid enough to be enjoyable but just a little bit under the threshold of being totally awesome. I dunno, if you read this, try it out, and don't like it, at least play the game the band is named after. My email is in my profile, I'm sure you'll want to thank me.
RATING - 78%
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