Kev Rowland
Shadows Past was formed in 2005 by singer Ola Halén and guitarist Jonatan Berg when they discovered that they had similar tastes in music. Over the years various members came and went, including drummer Johnny Sandin (Seventh Wonder) and bassist Niklas ”Nille” Sandin, (now in Katatonia). Multi-instrumentalist Staffan Lindroth joined the band on keyboards, and brought in his drummer Olle on drums and the current line-up came together when Jonatan asked his drummer Patrik to join on bass, making this a fairly unusual situation with two pairs of brother in the same band. In 2009 the guys rehearsed so that pre-production and recordings for the debut album could begin in 2010. But the process of finishing the album was delayed by the decision to scrap some of the studio recordings for technical reasons, but in late 2011 everything was finally recorded and the task to mix, master and set the sound of the debut was passed on to Erik Mårtensson (Eclipse, W.E.T., Seventh Wonder etc.) and during the spring of 2012 the album was finalized. It was later that year that Christian Liljegren heard the album and decided to add Shadows Past to the growing number of bands on the Doolittle label.
So, it has taken quite a time to get to this point but it is definitely worth the wait as there are many different things going on as they bring together Stratovarius with Helloween and add some additional elements that at times are very progressive, and at others are quite dark and threatening. This is melodic power metal with plenty of riffs and passion which gets better the louder it is played. It crunches when it needs to, and Ola has a great voice while Staffan is a real find as he underpins everything that the band is doing, with wonderful fills and nuances as well as taking lead when required or sometimes just providing a solid grounding for Jonatan so that he can go off and provide another solo.
There is some great power metal coming out of Sweden at present, and this is yet another fine example of the genre. They can blast with the best of then, as well as providing loads of melody and stacks of hooks. It definitely fits in that genre but with nods in other directions which makes it of interest to a wide range of metalheads. Worth investigating