Band:	Shadows Fall
Album:	Retribution
Style:	Metalcore, Thrash metal
Release date:	September 15, 2009
Guest review by:	Arian Totalis

01. The Path To Imminent Ruin
02. My Demise
03. Still I Rise
04. War
05. King Of Nothing
06. The Taste Of Fear
07. Embrace Annihilation
08. Picture Perfect
09. A Public Execution
10. Dead And Gone

Metalcore innovators, Shadows Fall, have had a lucrative career with several changes in their sound. From melodic death metal, to a more DM influenced style of metalcore and thrash, then finally into the more commercialized sound of metalcore such as on Threads of Life. After the aforementioned release , the band split with Atlantic records and founded their very own Everblack Industries which can be seen as a redeeming point for them, a transition into an additional, yet satisfying metalcore sound.

On this album, a combination of heavy riffs, melodic arpeggios, and highly "thrashtastic" solos can be heard. Songs like "War" (with an impressively blistering solo), "King Of Nothing" and "A Public Execution" are amongst the most aggressive guitar riffs on the album. Bachand and Donais, the six string samurai of the group, also have a good focus on acoustic arpeggios. The opening track, for instance, contains a very relaxing instrumental called "The Path of Immenent Ruin", which is a very clever lead up into the proceeding track. Another example of these stylistic melodies can be seen on "Picture perfect." Not too shabby guys.

Drumming on this album is very straightforward and gets down to business. Jason Bitner, as usual, keeps us entertained with his seamless double bass technique, precise fills, and well thought out cymbal work. He is undoubtedly one of the biggest driving factors to the energy in their music. Though the drumming on this album is not as notable as on previous releases, the job has, nevertheless, been well done. The bass playing on this album, on the other hand is the same as on any other release by the group, adding flavour and accent into the rhythm section, but nothing more. You can tell, though, that Ramanko isn't quite as faded in the production as he normally is which is interesting, perhaps being an omen for him for the future releases, at which point I can only hope he brings more to the table than he has in the past.

The vocals still don't hold the heavy edge that we knew Brian Fair to have in his early days with the band but he does bring back some of his former brutality here, unpredictably dropping into jagged toothed growls from time to time which is very pleasing. For most of time, however, he uses more middle tone vocals. The lyrics are surprisingly dark for our renowned buddhist frontman, but it suits the sound of the album, and was mentioned by Fair as an intended theme for it.

Along with a few well done covers (Most notably Cro-Mags' "Age of Quarrel") this album is pretty decent. If one doesn't compare it to the past albums and just takes it as it is, this one is very much a worthwhile release. I'm happy to see that Shadows Fall has cleared the path for their retribution.