The day has finally come – sweet release from the musical blue-balls left by Bring Me the Horizon’s teaser for their upcoming album last November.
Shadow Moses confronted the months of hype today with a UK release on Daniel P. Carter’s BBC Radio 1 program, Rock Show. The debut triggered a worldwide scrambling for a taste of the metalcore outfit’s latest offering, and it appears that the world is licking its lips in glee. As of writing, unofficial radio recordings uploaded on YouTube have accumulated in excess of 100,000 views – in fifteen hours.
Apparently, Shadow Moses is exactly what fans craved. The cliffhanger that left us wanting in the trailer erupts in the satisfying crunch of bouncing breakdown that the British group have made so key to their sound. We are then greeted with the familiar adrenalin rush that is a Horizon verse – pumping bass drums, churning guitar distortion, and lyrics begging to be screamed by thousands.
Though the band hasn’t completely turned the tables on their usual style in this track, it’s easy to see why. In light of their forthcoming world tour, Shadow Moses provides the necessary catchiness and aggressive punch that will guarantee explosive moshes and sing-alongs in festival crowds that mightn’t have heard the band’s most recent release.
This, however, isn’t set to continue across the entire album. Frontman Oli Sykes promised in an interview with Rock Sound that “the only goal for [the band] is pushing ourselves.” Shadows Moses gives us an inkling of this, while building upon the tried and true sound that they’ve established so far, the signs of a maturing band creep into the track quite clearly.
For instance, the iconic, atmospheric electronic-infused female vocals of There is a Hell make a strong reappearance. This time, though, screamer Oli Sykes comes closer to clean vocal accompaniment than perhaps we’ve ever heard from the band. And somewhat surprisingly, it works. For a band so focussed on the brutal delivery of lyrical content, this gives us an inkling of the sort of evolution we can expect from Sempiternal.
With no original releases (excluding the collaborative Chillout Sessions remix album with Draper) since 2010, Shadow Moses, breaks the silence spectacularly. Regardless of opinion on the apparent loss of heaviness, the track is sweet respite from the lack of releases and a welcome introduction to Bring Me the Horizon’s upcoming album, Sempiternal, this February.
Shadow Moses is available for listening below.
