To Cast a Shadow - In Memory of (2011)

In the slow and painfully good category today we have To Cast a Shadow and their Doom album “In Memory of”. It has been quite a while since a band has managed to capture the emptiness and bleakness of Death/Gothic Doom Metal, but luckily To Cast a Shadow has given us 10 tracks of emotional music.

Hailing from Norway, this band delivers a very simple yet effective approach to the genre and with angelic female vocals creates a very powerful atmosphere. Traditional Doom Metal riffs open “Tormented” and all is good until you get the male vocals, to be brutally honest… they suck, but the female vocals greatly make up for this in the rest of the song.

For us, the album really started with “Morose”, in this song the band uses simple drum/riff patterns and effectively crafts a very traditional song for the genre. We particularly like how depressing the female vocals are in this song. The ‘acoustic’ passages greatly add to the overall mood of this very effective song. “Nightfall” keeps on the same tradition and will depress the hell out of you… just the way we like it.

With some Anathema and Elbereth influences we have “Nightfall”, a very smooth piece that nicely highlights the female vocals with nice melodic guitars and simple drums. “Oceans Apart” is another very nice piece of melancholic power and features some growls. After the nice filler track “Betula”, we have the very dynamic and ethereal “My Misery” with some very nice ‘beauty and the beast’ sections.

“When You Leave the Room” strikes us as a more My Dying Bride-esque song since it is a bit more powerful and direct. The catchy “Set Afire” sounds like older Ashes You Leave songs and it is very entertaining. Our favorite song has to be “The Answer” due to its very catchy melody and solid riffing. “In Memory Of” is our second favorite song due to the effective use of keyboards to contrast the pounding guitars and sweet vocals.

In general, we have to say that “In Memory Of” is an excellent release for all the Death/Gothic Doom lovers. We highly recommend this release if you want crushing guitars, haunting female vocals and overall very entertaining songs.

Release: November 19th, 2010

Country: Norway