CRIMSON DAY – Order of the Shadows review

CRIMSON DAY – Order of the Shadows

Iron Shield Records

http://www.crimsonday.com/

If you are in a constant search for traditional heavy metal, then the northern part of Europe can be your metal Eldorado. This time we will go to Finland and meet the new band with the name CRIMSON DAY. These guys are introduced to us through their debut album under the title “Order of the Shadows”.  Which are my impressions from their debut release? Well keep on reading and you will find out.

THE COVER: The painting which is on the cover of the debut album of the band gave me a depressive and menacing feeling. It is the kind of cover that you can see on a comic book or even on a crime mystery book. It shows the back alley of a building in a town and a man dressed in a cape in shadows holding a knife or a dagger. Yep, the cover creates a strong impression and I like it also because it has this old school feeling.

MUSICAL STYLE: In our days that heavy metal music is strong again and many bands pop up from all over the world it is necessary to create music with character that can make you noticeable. I think that CRIMSON DAY, with their debut album, show that they do not feel good by just copying the old school bands, but they try to make music that can be recognized as their own. Of course as we know nothing is new under the sun and CRIMSON DAY in their debut album show us where the roots of their sound lies. Their sound is riff oriented with some very good shredding guitar solo parts and a neck breaking rhythm section. Actually these guys follow the teachings of JUDAS PRIEST mainly and IRON MAIDEN too, but also give to their sound a strong U.S, metal feeling which becomes even stronger when you listen to the way that their singer Valtteri Heiskanen, sings. Actually, Valtteri reminded me strongly of James Rivera and I am writing this as a compliment.

CONCLUSION: I don’t know if CRIMSON DAY bring fresh ideas or are innovative, but this I know for sure… they do play their music with inspiration and from the heart and these are the most significant elements for heavy metal music along with the skillful playing which this band has. It is an album that I can easily recommend to every fan of traditional metal and especially the ones that like good old HELSTAR.

Nick “Verkaim” Parastatidis