Band:	Shade Empire
Album:	Sinthetic
Style:	Symphonic black metal
Release date:	March 2004

01. Conjuration
02. Pain & Pleasure
03. Human Sculpture [feat. Marco Hietala]
04. Designed For Blood [feat. Spellgoth]
05. Creation Of Death
06. Ja Pimeys Laskeutui
07. Extreme form Of hatred
08. Demonized
09. End Of Dreams

I remember two years ago, when it was the beginning for me and Metalstorm.ee, a guy in our forum linked us to the website of Shade Empire. I remember that I was [and I was not the only one] very impressed by the very good and original music of this young combo from Finland, and I was sure of one thing, that we will hear of them in the future. It's not a surprise for me to see that the band, release its first album through Avantgarde Music, which is the perfect label for this kind of band. "Sinthetic" is the first album of this promising combo, and we will see, if they confirm with this album all the potentiality of their talent.

It's not very easy to present the musical style of Shade Empire and maybe the better way for me could be to say that they are maybe the perfect mix between all the musical genres made in Finland. Black Metal, Finnish melodic Death/Power, Symphonic music, and even some electronic parts, Shade Empire manages to mix all these musical genres, and this is the really great point of the band. They really sound Finnish but their music is original, they are unique for sure.
Great technical guitars riffs extremely melodic with a very fast tempo, and an powerful drums, with in addition a numerous parts of really symphonic keyboards, which always sound very electronic. This album is great because as I said before, it's not really common to listen to this kind of music, but another great thing with the music of the band is the fact that it can touch a lot of people. The ones, who like symphonic bands, a la Nightwish, the ones who like bands like Children of Bodom or the ones who like some avant-gardist Black Metal bands like Diabolical Masquerade. At the end it's not strange to see a guest for the vocals on "Human Sculpture", by Marko Hietala of Nightwish.
All the tracks are more than catchy, and really this is a real pleasure to listen to this album, which have the chance to have been recorded at the great Studio Perkele and mastered by at Finnvox. Of course which such means of production, it's not a real surprise if we have a perfect sound on this album, and it's again a good point for Shade Empire.
It's hard to find bad points on this album maybe some of you will find that it smell too much the production from Finland but well it's just a detail, and the ones who don't like this kind of music, can go away, they will just maybe avoid an interesting album?

If you want something from Finland who keep the tradition of the music of this country, but which is however original, "Sinthetic" is for you. Honestly, excepted Swallow The Sun, Shade Empire is the only band made in Suomi which surprised me this year, and as I said before in that review, don't afraid to buy this album because I can bet a beer, if you are open minded, that you'll like it. A must have for the fans of melodic metal.