Shadow’s Mignon- Midnight Sky Masquerade
(Prog Rock Records PRR690)
From Aural Innovations May 2009 update
This is a new group lead by Henning Pauly (who plays all the instruments except the keyboards on 3 songs). They clearly wanted to make an 80’s metal record and I can clearly say they have succeeded. Juan Roos sings the vocals and Stephen Kernbach lays down the keyboards on 3 tracks. Juan had already worked with Henning on a release called Credit where Credit is Due. Anyway, this CD features 12 tracks in 72 minutes. Let’s get started with a Dragon shall Come and yes we are straight back to 1986 sound with the chorus of voices, soaring guitar harmonies and solos. A Slave to Metal is a real anthem style song. A mixture of Accept, Manowar and Scorpions or something like that. Midnight sky Masquerade speeds things up and you will hear some hints of Iron Maiden. Goodnight Boston is an acoustic ballad with Juan really singing his heart out. Darkness comes to Light is really a classic 80’s rock sound (but with today’s digital production). A Beast Abandoned begins with a Steve Harris style bass line and Maiden like harmony guitars and is quite Maiden inspired. I will never ever Stop is a piano ballad with some beautiful guitar playing. A All Hail the Warrior is another one that really sends you back in time. Well done. Kingdom of the Battle Gods is a 10 minute epic that starts with acoustic guitars and some keyboard pads and the sound of water and very melodic singing. About 3 minutes in Hammond B3 organ kicks in and so do the heavy guitars. I was not so fond of the chorus and melodic parts but the rest of this song was cool. No Metal son of Mine starts with a very melodic guitar solo and starts as a ballad as well, but soon really speeds up and takes off and has quite powerful lyrics and vocals. Out of Control a quite fast number ends this pretty cool CD of 80’s inspired metal. Mostly the good aspects. Enjoy.
Check out the band web site at: http://www.myspace.com/shadowsmignon
Check out the Record Label web site at: http://www.progrockrecords.com
Reviewed by Scott Heller