Shadow Of Intent - Elegy • GRIMM Gent

Shadow Of Intent – Elegy

10/03/2022

Shadow Of Intent is an American deathcore band formed in 2013 and has released three albums with now time for their fourth in the form of ‘Elegy.’

They kick off with ‘Farewell’, with a nice intro that then bursts out into flames. Brutal deathcore mixed with the classic influences that have been their trademark since the very beginning and together with the strong voice of Ben Duerr, Shadow Of Intent is building their own masterpieces. Then we have ‘Saurian King’, and we have to say damn. This is my true favorite on the album, where they mix their deathcore with some amazing melodies. ‘The Coming Fire’ shows us that Shadow Of Intent has found their sound and if your hear it you just know it’s that American band called Shadow Of Intent. ‘Of Fury’ is the last song they released as a single before they showed ‘Elegy’ to the world and together with the other singles we couldn’t wait to hear what the full album had to offer. And with ‘Of Fury’ our expectations were high.

‘Intensified Genocide’ proves again why Ben Duerr is one of the best deathcore vocalists at the moment, supported by their brutal sound enhanced by great melodies. ‘Life of Exile’ starts off with a beautiful intro and shows a much softer side of Shadow Of Intent, a softer side in deathcore surroundings of course. And then we have one of the singles they released together with ‘Of Fury’ called ‘Where Millions Have To Die’, with a guest appearance from the mighty Phil Bozeman from deathcore colleagues Whitechapel, giving this song a real epic feeling.

‘From Ruin… We Rise’ is also one of the songs they released earlier and is one of my favorites together with the ‘Saurian King’, when hearing that track for the first time it made me really look forward to their new release with this deathcore beast. Then we have another guest appearance in ‘Blood In The Sands Of Time’ with the metal legend Chuck Billy from the thrash band Testament. Thrash and deathcore are a rather unique combination, but Chuck‘s voice works so well with the overall sound. ‘Reconquest’ is the last song before we hit the ‘Elegy’ trilogy that closes the album down. ‘Reconquest’ gives you the urge to just bang your head on the tone of the riffs and is highly engaging despite being an instrumental track. Good choice because it doesn’t need vocals at all in my opinion.

Like I mentioned earlier, Shadow Of Intent created a trilogy called ‘Elegy’ to close the album. We start with ‘Elegy I: Adapt’ that sounds more like an intro for the trilogy that properly kick off with ‘Elegy II: Devise’ and there again is their unique sound of deathcore nicely mixed with classical parts. We end this with ‘Elegy III: Overcome’ that is a nice ending to this album, we hope to see more of these guys in the future and we will, I am sure of that.