Andrew’s Judgmental Album Reviews: Shadowland – The Necromancer’s Castle (2021)

The second Halloween themed album review is here! New York classic heavy metal band Shadowland, and their new album The Necromancer’s Castle are up for judgment!

Let me lead off with, any World of Warcraft fans that immediately started crying, its fine this Shadowland has to be better than the WoW expansion. I mean, it’s a low bar, but its optimism, right? With the Warcraft disclaimer out of the way, let’s learn a little. Shadowland, is a female fronted band straight out of Brooklyn, New York. This is their debut full-length album, and it’s out perfectly in time with the season.

Shadowland is: Tanya Finder on vocals (and she did the artwork too), Al Bulmer on guitars, Cedric on Bass, Dave on Drums, Jeff Saint Filmer on guitars. So a staple 5 piece metal band since we get the dual guitars and the vocalist. Let’s see what classic bands they pull from and what they make their own!

• Artist: Shadowland
• Album: The Necromancer’s Castle (2021)
• Label: No Remorse Records
• Total Track Time: 38:16

Ligeia starts off with an echoed old school horror movie vibe and haunting spoken opening that sets the tone nicely. The song itself kicks in and we get a sound that gives Judas Priest and Budgie vibes to me initially. Tanya’s voice has a great tone, it’s not quite Lita Ford and not quite Ann Wilson; though sounds in that kind of range. It adds a nice element, and the production quality feels very old school. It’s not polished, but can easily remind you of early low budget 80s albums, like the first pressing of Killing is My Business or No Life Til Leather. The Necromancer’s Castle comes in with heavy Bass and Drums that really gives the song more of a darker Black Sabbath kind of vibe. As the rest of the song comes to fruition it feels a little more like Saxon but it’s really interesting. Especially when there’s a whole spoken verse which helps to just really make the whole Necromancer’s Castle feel like it was intended to come across like an old horror movie.

Walking in Shadows does kick off with slightly sharper guitars, but then really takes this underwater/echoed sound that also sounds like its spiraling. Through the verses the rhythm guitar has a tone very reminiscent of In My Darkest Hour by Megadeth.  This whole album has been like a horror movie time machine in ways. Everything from the mixing to the instrumentation sounds rooted firmly in the 80s while not sounding like a carbon copy from a certain band in that era. Rising Tide brings out the Iron Maiden influence very obviously. A quick downward scale run, the dueling guitars and even the little bit of the gallop, this has classic Maiden written all over the inspiration. Tanya’s voice does a great job at tying everything together, because even when tones get sharper and tempo picks up, her consistently delivery doesn’t make the song feel out of place, more like just another scene in the horror movie that is the album

Warhound starts off very cool with the dual guitar leads and comes through nicely. By now I think you should understand what most of their music sounds like from the previous descriptions, and this fits nicely in with those. This will probably be the song I throw into the review for everyone to sample on YouTube. Remains is next and boy does it remain in that 80s sound. I immediately had a Karate Kid montage run through my head or this sounds like a cruising song for any badass 80s movie character ever. It slows down a little as it continues, so that solidifies more for the montage, since maybe there was a setback, 80s montages are always great for perseverance. And just like the montage, the solo comes in and leads in to a more uplifting/rising tone. Oh another 80s element, the song starts to fade out while she’s singing the last verse, so there’s never like an official end it just fades out. Which is definitely a cool aspect they can utilize in live shows.

Easy Livin’ the title and even spelling is old school 70s/80s, but I’m fairly sure this is not a cover of the Uriah Heep song. I’m not gonna sit here and act like the expert on Uriah Heep, but the lyrics don’t sound the same to me. It’s still a great cruising song, with a driving and rocking rhythm, so nothing to really complain about. Pretty Faces is the last song on the album, and goes back to the NWOBHM sound as opposed to a little more of the bluesy rock that the last song was. The song returns to some of the earlier elements they were using with the instrumentation, spoken echoed out verses and what could be interpreted as the end of the horror movie. Things end with a movie clip sound byte, what sounds like a lightning crash and that’s all.

So let’s go over what I liked. The album was very easy to listen to, Tanya’s vocals are fantastic and definitely are the glue that holds it all together. The production quality though cool, was also a small detriment. The echo that helps the ambiance, hurt the understanding of the lyrics. Granted, they were more thematic and fantasy, so there wasn’t really a big political message; but I enjoy the wordplay and how the lyrics structure around the song. So the lack of understanding, and not having Google resources since they’re a newer/lesser known band didn’t help.

Easy Livin’ though a cool song, didn’t seem to completely fit the album, and the production being hit or miss for different aspects take some points off for me. It’s still a damn good album. If you like any of the bands I mentioned in comparison, you’ll enjoy Shadowland. Also this is a debut full length album, so, it’s a damn good start.

Final Judgment: 7.25/10