Band:	Snowy Shaw
Album:	White Is The New Black
Style:	Heavy metal
Release date:	May 25, 2018
A review by:	ScreamingSteelUS

01. Krampus
02. March Of The Black Dwarfs
03. Alcoholocaust
04. Wunderkind
05. Nachtgeist
06. Evil In Disgraceland
07. It's Getting Dark
08. Immortelle
09. My Religion
10. Evil Twin
11. Family Feud
12. Gothicburg Bridge / Is This My Destiny?

Snowy Shaw, a veteran of the stage and studio behind many artists of renown, delivers for the first time in his near-30-year career a solo album all his own. Most of us are familiar with at least a few of his coworkers, but the sound of White Is The New Black, for all its recognizable elements, is on the whole an intriguing and unique experiment.

Snowy describes White Is The New Black as a greatest hits album in reverse: this release compiles 12 tracks from six upcoming albums, two from each, and each pair of songs on White Is The New Black represents the sound we will some day hear from those future releases. Complicated, no? Confusing, no? Fortunately, the bizarre format is the only thing that inspires consternation on this album; due to its unusual concept and the multitude of genres in which Snowy has made himself comfortable, White Is The New Black conflates an eclectic array of styles and moods into an undeniably entertaining release.

The vocals alone cover a lot of ground, moving effortlessly between grating growls, nasal cleans, dry croaking, falsetto shrieks, monastic intonations, leathery crooning, and grotesquely sing-able choruses - and then there are the unmistakably dwarvish chants. As a frontman, Snowy possesses rare versatility and has a keen sense of how best to set his talents along the appropriate courses. Naturally, the music flows from scene to scene with a similar level of facility and fluidity, matching the vocals point-for-point as the groovy "Wunderkind" wanders back and forth from groovy machine rock to gothic grunge, "March Of The Black Dwarfs" wraps up creepy war chants with unorthodox operatic melody, and "Nachtgeist" plunges Judas Priest into Strapping Young Lad. This album combines elements from so much of Snowy's past work; the more bands you like that Snowy has been in, the more you will like this album, and yet the precise feeling of White Is The New Black is one hard to place in any preexisting albums.

If I were to ascribe a particular genre to White Is The New Black, I would call it neoclassical industrial blackened power groove with a gothic lemon twist. That sounds *quite* dumb and a lot more over-the-top than the seamless and natural execution deserves, but every track illustrates the accuracy. In spite of the high-level genre fu, however, this is a very cohesive release; each song has the same inscrutable combination of campy horror, wry humor, and expert understanding of metalcraft. So many selections are in competition for my favorite that I doubt I could choose one, but most of this album will be stuck in my head for a long time to come anyway.

The most important thing about White Is The New Black is that it is a fun album. Whipping out so many styles and crunching through so many personality-heavy tunes can make for an intimidating, exhausting release, especially from an artist trying to prove their flexibility, and the fact that Snowy can do all this while making it seem natural is as much an accomplishment as being able to do it at all. All the immense theatricality endemic to Snowy Shaw and many of the artists he has performed with makes this album feel like a big cartoon opera, though not at the expense of the heavy metal street cred; "Krampus" makes it apparent from the very beginning that Snowy wants to bring us Christmas cheer (or whatever it is) as much as appropriate head-banging material.