At The Soundawn – Shifting (2010)

At The Soundawn comes from Italy and are here to show us what they are made off with “Shifting”, the band’s second release. For a band so young the musicianship in “shifting” is pretty impressive to say the least. Fusing Post-Rock, Post-Metal and even some Jazzy influences, the band will easily draw comparisons to Cult Of Luna, Mowgai and similar artists.

While there are countless of boring Post-Rock/Metal album, “Shifting” is one of the best we have heard this 2010. The band does an excellent job at creating haunting atmospheres and instrumental passages to transport the listener into a different world. Featuring healthy doses of raspy vocals and aggressive parts, this release does not fall into the ‘too much atmosphere, not enough content” category that many bands playing this genres of music do.

With seven tracks clocking 45 minutes, every listener will enjoy the craftsmanship behind every single song, and will find many interesting passages that will induce a hypnotic state. The mixture of clean vocals and raspy vocals is pretty well balanced and never gets annoying like in other releases.

The guitar work is excellent, both melodic and crushing when needed. The combination of clean sections with distorted ones is very well balanced in order to support the atmosphere created by the samples and keyboards. This atmosphere has the traditional depressive feeling that we love about similar releases.

“Shifting” is a very good release that will surely enjoyed by most people that like Post-Rock/Metal bands. The whole album flows very nicely and each track has its unique little elements that will be discovered over the span of several listens to this record. We highly recommend people to get this release and let themselves be transported into the world of At The Soundawn.

Release: March 15th, 2010 (Europe)

Country: Italy