Legion of the Damned - Slaves of the Shadow Realm

It’s here! The first new album write-up of 2019: the first one I will be scoring out of 10 at the end of this post. It’s a little unfortunate the way labels often dump a lot of albums they don’t have much faith in in January and February. I remember being really underwhelmed for the first three months of last year because it was so much weaker on average than the oddly incredible string of albums that kicked off 2017. But 2018 ended up being a stronger year overall by the time it was over (in my opinion). It’s not something worth dwelling on too heavily, but it’s hard not to see the year’s first few albums as the foreshadowing of the many more to come in a sort of symbolic sense more than anything else, and it sucks that it’s usually the albums the label puts the least investment in. In this case, it’s Napalm Records’ Dutch black metal proletariat Legion of the Damned with Slaves of the Shadow Realm.

I remember giving this band a few cursory listens back in 2014 or so when their last album came out. I wasn’t wowed enough then to really dive deeper into their catalog, and after my time with Slaves of the Shadow Realm, I can’t say that lack of captivation has really changed. The band lay out a good hand of cards in the table, the competence to pin down the style of modern, well-adjusted, and neat black metal with a little thrash edge they’re clearly trying to infiltrate. But despite having the same ingredients that might make a wildly animated Goatwhore album or a sinister Watain album, Legion of the Damned don’t really add any kind of signature flair to the style, rarely doing more than the basic requirements to pass. And indeed it does pass; it’s a serviceable album that can certainly scratch a straightforward, crunchy black metal itch, but it provides the kind of scratch that only leaves another more nagging itch for something more satiating. It has its brief, fleeting moments of tangible creative inspiration, like the gang-vocal-led “Slaves to the Southern Cross” or the more uptempo fervor of “Priest Hunt”. But unfortunately the album is more overwhelmingly generic than visionary or significantly exciting. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a generic album, but when such an album just makes me crave another album while I’m listening, rather than making me enjoy the album experience I’m having in the moment, I can’t help but wish for something to be there to make it more flavorful on its own. The band, again, certainly know their way around the sound they’re using, but the lack of convincing ideas in the writing just leaves this album feeling like a project put together just to hit all the C-level check marks on the assignment rubric.

Overly salty appetizer/10