Trying to Be Eternal...
Shamash is a
noteworthy crew. These Toluca metallers have one really original thing inside
their circle and when you take a look on the line-up, you see… two bassists on
the board. Yep, and even Pablo Prior with the lead bass. It looks really
gorgeous, don’t you think? Unfortunately for this band, another instrument (keyboards)
is a decisive and negative factor when I want to write a final comment. To put
it briefly, using this stuff makes me really nervous, and it refers to almost
each parts of keys sound played on “Eternal as Time”. Sometimes, when keyboards
take the lead position and cover all the rest of instrumental parts, the
comparisons go to the worse moments of German Crematory, to the band I really don’t
like. The most of melodies created by Mauricio Delgado are unacceptable,
especially in “When Every Tear Weakened the Sky”, “Among Fire and Blood” and
“The Divine Oversight”, when I can hear some childish and definitely too joyful
tunes for the metal band. But the worst song on the album is the last one “The
Whispers of the Darklight”, made of keyboards only. Indeed, a poor ending of
“Eternal as Time”…
Fortunately
it doesn’t mean that Mexicans recorded a completely bad album. I made mention on
the bassist, and it’s a pity that his performance is rather hidden behind the
rest, only during the slowdowns the bass lines are heard without hindrance. Of
course I have to write about “The Silence”, the instrumental song with no
keyboards (yes, finally!!!) and great melodies played by Prior’s bass. Simply
“The Silence” rules and I treat this modest piece of music as the best song on
“Eternal as Time”. Then the guitars: though the riffs are arranged correctly,
two guitarists don’t offer any special and exciting moments. Maybe it suffers
from the lack of large quantity of guitar leads? But I admit that the music
isn’t monotonous: from slow and almost doomish whiles (“Empire of the Sun”), to
very fast storms (“Where Every…”, ”Where the Hate Becomes”). The musicians try
to excite the interest by creating a proper atmosphere and memorable sounds,
but in my opinion the keyboards are the main stuff that destroys all the
efforts. To cut it short, the whole has a definitely better image when
keyboards have not a leader position in the song structures and they are kept
just in the background.
As the
booklet says, Oscar Prior and Alejandro Barrera are responsible for singing. Two
persons, but I tell you that vocals are served in many different ways, the
leading singing is maintained in a typical semi-growl, but also I can hear two
clean voices, some usual blackish shrieks and, from time to time, some piercing
shouts in the highest (I guess) vocal register I have ever heard, full of
despair and hopelessness. Even if these mind ripping screams are recorded more
silently a bit, they are a very good diversity in whole vocal performance.
For sure “Eternal as Time” raises the doubts,
as the conflicting emotions split my mind. Keyboards and lack of fine,
memorable guitar leads are the main complaints here, however the remainder is a
noteworthy as I wrote at the start. Summing all the things up, this debut
Shamash album appears as a mediocre title with some bright musical points, but
everything is for nothing. I think the album got lost in that time (it was
released in 1999) amidst many, many similar bands. The band decided to split up
soon and now they seem to be dead forever. Anyway, it’s really hard to be
eternal as time…
60/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(written on December, 2013)
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