Shadow Of Life

Shadow of Life is the ten song debut album from Umbra Vitae, recorded and mixed by Kurt Ballou at God City Studios. Guitars and bass were recorded by Mike McKenzie at The Black Coast. The album was mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. Intro “Decadence Dissolves” is a Schuldiner-esque calm before the storm. “Ethereal Emptiness” and “Atheist Aesthetic” soon rip everything apart, methodically downshifting from blackened to brutal in tone. “Mantra of Madness” then emerges as a monster of a song, driven by inhuman drumming and traditional death metal riffing. This pattern of intensity continues in “Fear is a Fossil”, “Polluted Paradise”, and “Intimate Inferno”. All are motion sickness inducing numbers that violently lurch in aural agony. It’s here one realizes that this album never lets up.