Shadygrove
In the Heart of Scarlet Wood

From the bands Elvenking, Sound Storm and Evenoire come the members of this band called Shadygrove, a band fronted by the singer of one of my favourite female fronted band – the now defunct Evenoire. They are described as aural archaeologists trawling eras not commonly inspirational to bands to make music from the soul… for the soul. That sounds pretty great, doesn’t it? And with such a sextet of Italian metal royalty one would have to imagine that we are in for a treat, and that imagination would be entirely correct even though they aren’t going down the metal routes.

I would say that they go down a route best described as something like Celtic folk pop music, not very heavy and it is acoustic with violins, flutes and other things. I think Shadygrove is a band that gives us a very atmospheric sound, and a really strong production and very good vocals as well as a strong variation of songs. Nine songs to be more exact, an album of nine songs playing for about 48 minutes, which feels like a well weighted playing time for an album of this character. Add to that an album that feels quite fresh in terms of style and sound, like a more exciting version of Blackmore’s Night could be one way to describe them.

Valiant and wonderful, fascinating and exciting are some of the words I would use to try and describe what I think about this album – about this walk through scarlet woods. It is a great album, perhaps not quite within the frame we usually write about, no rock or metal but who cares when it sounds this brilliant – and it was made by some of the greatest metal minds Italy has to offer. It is really a most appealing album that I find well worth checking out and probably would have bought if it came in a vinyl version but I will keep it in the digital library and listen to it every now and then. It is an album I can recommend to all you who happen to read what I write.

Enticing start with the track Scarlet Wood that is a most enjoyable song that also sets a great tone for the album, an album with exclusively good tracks and no weaknesses. So I have mentioned Scarlet Wood but my favourite track has to be Cydonia, which is a track I happen to repeat a few times when I play through the album. So if you enjoy any of the bands mentioned it is well worth checking out this album, this rather brilliant and enjoyable album – molto bene as they might say in Italy.

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