Welcome to the meandering musical insights of Aaron Joy (me!), formerly known as the Roman Midnight Music Blog. Here you'll find nearly 750 reviews of CDs & DVDs of rock & metal in all its variations, mainstream & indie, good & bad, U.S. & foreign. A new review every Monday.

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September 3, 2011

Shadowplay ~ Burnt Paradise (album review) ... Lying dead in Hollywood!


Style: heavy metal, industrial
Label: self-released
Year: 2010
Home: North Carolina

Members: J. Williams ~ vocals/guitar/bass

Additional: Kevin Watson, Kurt Dellinger ~ drums
The debut by Shadowplay, aka guitarist/singer/composer J. Williams with the help of a couple friends behind the drum kit, is an atmospheric metal outing that tends to creep along slowly with long dangling distorted notes & unhurried vocals versus fast thrashy playing. It's not exactly industrial ... or at least it doesn't wallow in electronic or keyboard tweaking & awkward rhythms, though there are some electronic drums on a handful of songs ... but if you think of the ballad part of the genre there's was definitely a lot of fumes from that part of industrial floating around the brain of Williams when he created Burnt Paradise. Both musically & lyrically the inspiration is all too obvious on a few tracks, while others tend to be more hard rock. The difference in Shadowplay's take on industrial is that that isn't a dense release with a lot of layers that marks a lot of industrial music nor does it rip everything apart to create a barren landscapes of just a few plunked notes. Though, that being said, the standout "Pure Dark" does play with basic notes crashing quickly out of nowhere, bubbling drums, guitar effects & the wonders of stereo to create perfect industrial trance-like moodiness while "Dead In Hollywood" & "Anger Burns" sound like Marilyn Manson demo tracks & the later particularly so with the vocals, but both tracks lack the intricate layered density of Manson. Lyrically Williams is casting out demons of his vision of what a burnt paradise looks like as the aforementioned song titles belay, plus: "Depraved", "Somethings In The People", "Memories Of You", "Like A Threat", "Not Alone", "Used You". Shadowplay is aiming for something in the middle ground with both heavy songs & lighter songs, even a solo acoustic piece "Grown From Our Youth" ending the album, but outside of "Pure Dark" never really going too far in either direction. One can feel that Williams is trying to bring together different musical interests to create his own style, but one also wishes that he would choose one direction & develop it more fully. The industrial outings are under-developed while the hard rock end isn't exactly catching fire. For live performances Shadowplay has expanded into a full band which undoubtedly moved the music in new directions & make up for what couldn't be done alone in the studio.

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