2013
Another new day is upon us and with that comes the fresh discovery of another new Ohio heavy metal act. Let me clarify that. By new I actually mean new to me. As it turns out Shores of Elysium, who hail from Columbus, Ohio (hometown of my Buckeyes!), have actually been around since the early part of 2011 with the upcoming "Entity In The Void" serving as their second full-length release. I play the part of the fool once again when I try to act as if I'm finely honed in to everything that my home-state has to offer as far as the heavy metal scene in concerned. Despite that admission, or (if you prefer) in spite of that admission, my appreciation of Ohio's metal scene is further cemented thanks to Shores of Elysium. Serving as the follow-up to 2012's "The Arbiter's Clockwork", which I just might try to back-track my way to after this review is wrapped up in hopes that I might just be able to acquire it, "Entity In The Void" is not an album to be trifled with! When confronted face to face with Shores of Elysium you find yourself staring into the cold, seemingly damned, eyes of a being that looks as if it has been cursed to walk the face of this planet for all of eternity. Or at least that's the vibe that "Entity" gives off as everything on album number two for these Ohio natives sounds as if it is full of agony and despair. Even the intense vocal delivery of lead singer Dylan Glendening cuts to the very heart of misery. As a group it's plain to see that Shores of Elysium is made up of a talented lot of musicians. At the end of the day I walked away never once questioning the skills of all involved with "Entity In The Void". But be warned it's not a release for looking for warm and fuzzy metal. And thank God for that my friends and fellow metal enthusiasts! This lot is cold-hearted, but isn't that what we all look for out of extreme metal bands these days? No, I am not letting that cat out of the bag quite yet when it comes to the brutal style of Shores of Elysium. This isn't really "extreme metal" it's much more a case of this being one EXTREME release! To get a better idea of what these Ohio metal maniacs are like then picture the following. Imagine (high-class) technical death metal getting kidnapped at gunpoint by underground (raw) deathcore as part of some kind of strange "rite of passage from this world to another" ritual. After the pair are purposely tangled up together in bard wire (the flesh-ripping variety and not that train wreck of a film staring Pamela Anderson!) by the unhinged deathcore things take on an even crazier turn into madness when the two entities are dipped in the blood of a thousand dead warriors of old, dossed with gasoline and then slowly burned to a crisp. After all of that the two forces combine into this one unholy and sorrowful ghost of a creature and, with the help of producer Mark Lewis, go about putting their misery to tape at Audio Hammer Studios (The Black Dahlia Murders, Whitechapel, DevilDriver)! Is that crazy? Yes, it probably is. But, if I took anything away at all from listening to this release at it was that Shores of Elysium, while embracing technical death metal and brutal deathcore with equal fervor, offer the listening public a menacing collection of tracks that is far from run of the mill. Even if this group had not yet appeared on my "home-state metal scene", which has more to do with my shortcomings then the group's overall appeal, I'm a firm believer now and I will be looking for the first chance I can get to catch this group in a live setting!
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