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Monday, March 3, 2014

Whispered - Shogunate Macabre

Year: 2014

The band with it's unique touch of japanese elements orchestrated in every song was absolutely beautiful and well executed. Indeed the songs showed dexterity and much attention to detail with every section of the song being greater than the last. It was truly a treat to review this album 'Shogunate Macabre' by the band Whispered hailing from Finland. It is amazing what good music and the quality of metal bands that come from Finland. The composition of the each song is a work of art and to be precise each different from the other and having it's own unique form to show.


The only drawback felt was that due to the extreme attention in detail that the songs could have been expressed a little better. "Quality over Quantity" is an apt way to describe this album since everytime a song started it felt as if I was warped into alternate dimension where I'd lay witness to an epic battle unfold right before my eyes in the Japanese feudal era. But before I could truly grasp the intensity of the music the song would be over and I'd find myself wanting more. But this feeling was felt only for a few of the songs and not all. 

Other than that the band showed much promise with their catchy melodic riffs combined with such a bold approach on the drums and vocals topped with beautifully orchestrated lead sections. My favorite song from this album would be 'Jikininki' where I found the starting reference of the song with the Japanese context from 0:00 to 0:15 which translated "yume wo mita kare no yume sono kare...yukedomo yukedomo hito....... aru" which basically means "I saw a dream... his dream...something going on and on" which made me feel as if a person was dreaming of the intense battles that took place during the ancient times of Japan where the samurai rose to protect their feudal lords and masses were slaughtered for the greater good of their country.

This band never failed to surprise me for every song. As I listened to the songs more they only got better. Songs such as 'Hold the Sword' and 'Fallen Amaterasu' start out guns blazing and end with a slow yet delicate touch, nothing less of a beautiful ending. The songs could be characterized as the "calm after the storm" where the intro to each song would start off with such power and end with such beauty and finesse. This was one of the most enjoyable albums I have had a chance to listen to and would definitely be one of the best melodic death metal band's that I've listened to in a long while. Overall the album was very skillfully executed and is something definitely you would want to check out.

Rating : 90%










1 comment:

  1. Monolog at the start of Jikininki comes from Akira Kurosawa's movie Ran.

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