Well, this I did not expect! After a a dozen or so mostly harsh noise releases in 2008, following 2006's folk-drone masterpiece, The Dance of the Moon and the Sun, Natural Snow Buildings' second release of 2009, Shadow Kingdom, was largely a return to their earlier TDotMatS sound.
Shadow Kingdom was released by the label Blackest Rainbow as 2-CD and 3-LP sets. It was another limited release (500 copies) and came accompanied by a 16-page comic book. The album has been uploaded to YouTube, where you can listen to it in its entirety.
Shadow Kingdom was released by the label Blackest Rainbow as 2-CD and 3-LP sets. It was another limited release (500 copies) and came accompanied by a 16-page comic book. The album has been uploaded to YouTube, where you can listen to it in its entirety.
Things start off ominously, however, with the opening cut, the epic 25-minute The Fall of the Shadow Kingdom. While not as noisy and chaotic as some of their 2008 output, it still suggests that the listener to Shadow Kingdom is in for a bumpy ride, but the key to this track is the last 90 seconds, where the clouds suddenly part and an acoustic folk sound emerges. The second cut, Gorgon (not to be confused with the chaotic Gorgons from 2008's Night Coercion Into the Company of Witches) is a folk song that would have felt right at home on TDotMatS. Here's Gorgon, including the last 90 seconds of The Fall of the Shadow Kingdom.
We didn't think we'd ever hear NSB sound like that again. The third track, the 8½-minute medley For Fear They May Come Back/Children of the Seventh Circle/The Dark Road, sounds like one of their post-rock tracks from The Winter Ray, while the rest of Disc 1, including Os Deus Cannibais, sounds like more TDotMatS (or earlier) outtakes.
Disc 1 ends with the track The Crystal Bird, which does not appear in the LP version.
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