reviews / 2020

FEARING - Shadow

Name: FEARING – Shadow
Item: Shadow
Rating: 7.5
Author: Lorenzo Pagani

2020 (Funeral Party)

death-rock, gothic-rock

by Lorenzo Pagani

7.5

After recording two EPs in 2017 (“A Life Of None” and “Black Sand”), the moment has also come for this California band to release their debut Fearing album on full-length.

Released this past April 10th, “Shadow” confirms the gothic-rock and dark-punk blend that has set the band apart since their earliest days sound from the Oakland quartet.

The fruit of a year of sessions home recording sessions was thus released in the midst of lockdownand it's a work balanced on the edge between pain and comfort, not without a dose of consolatory quality in its DNA, especially if you're used to shipwrecking in certain seas.

Theguitar instrumental immerses us in the melancholic world of Fearing, made up of strongly atmospheric textures, melodies brought to the fore – though punctuated by a vibrant rhythm section – and vocals dark but romantic.

No tracks stand out in particular, because "Shadow" is a kind of unicuma strongly cohesive and homogeneous work (think of albums like “Pornography” of the Cure or the latest works by the Bad Seeds). The biographical notes cite among the influences, besides the bands of Robert Smith and Nick Cavethe inevitable Sisters Of Mercy and French coldwave act Asylum Party.

It's another dark gem rooted in do-it-yourself, twelve years after “Static Thoughts”, the debut of Estranged, who kicked off a wave of bands combining precisely a sound dark sound with punk urgency. A combative niche that has kept the flag of gothic rock flying without interruption, carrying forward a conversation started by the genre's forerunners more than forty years ago, whose appeal doesn't seem the least bit dulled by the passing of time.

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16/06/2020

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Lorenzo Pagani, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition