Take one look at the cover of Shadows of Man, the second full-length album from Canada’s Scimitar. You think you know what to expect, right?. You might be correct: These nine songs are rife with fantasy-fueled lyrics and razor riffs as sharp as the band's namesake.
But this is not traditional power metal. Rather, Scimitar’s sounds falls somewhere between thrash, traditional metal, death/black metal, pirate metal and folk/Celtic metal.
The best example of this hybrid can be heard on “Knights Collapse,” an unexpected rap/sea shanty courtesy of lead singer and bassist Angus Lennox. His harsh yet sharply enunciated vocals, along with dual-guitar harmonies and gang vocals, give the song a refreshing Alestorm-meets-Great Big Sea vibe. The rest of the album is filled with fun twists, melodies galore and unexpected instrumentation, too.
This is a wordy album -- you should see the lyric sheet -- and Lennox earns his keep. But so does the rest of the band.
Track Listing:
1. State of Nature
2. Knights Collapse
3. Flayed on the Birch Rack
4. Wandering at the Moon
5. To Cultivate with Spears
6. Shadow of Men I: Imperium
7. Shadow of Men II: Cataclysm
8. Where Ancient Spectres Lie
9. Mysterium, Tementum et Fascinans
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