Band:	Shade Empire
Album:	Intoxicate O.S.
Style:	Symphonic black metal
Release date:	May 2006

01. Slitwrist Ecstacy
02. Bloodstar
03. Chemical God
04. Rat In A Maze
05. Soulslayers
06. The Silver Fix
07. Embrace The Gods Of Suffering
08. Ravine
09. Hatefeast
+ Music video: Chemical God

When hearing the band name "Shade Empire," I imagined something exactly sounding like their latest effort Omega Arcane, a very bombastic symphonic black metal album. But their previous outputs turned out to be quite a bit different, and so Intoxicate O.S. sounds a lot more Sinthetic.

Unlike their later efforts, Intoxicate O.S. depends a lot more on keys, which is not necessarily too bad. The thing that I'm not sure how I should feel about is that they are also mixed heavily into the foreground. This at times drowns the guitars under a wall of synthetic melodies. Imagine a room with a melodic black metal band playing in the middle surrounded by tons of keyboards in a circle around them, trying their best to create a variety of atmospheres, while still remaining insanely catchy. Then add Harju's quite solid vocals, but be aware that they sometimes can overshoot the mark, especially in "Slitwrist Ecstasy" (though I think in this case it suits the song quite well for the most part).

The main problem I have is not the heavy use of keys, but that it often feels too forced and at the same time very safe. There are hardly any melodies that really strike me as innovative, or special in any way. It seems that the band often relies a lot on the catchiness of the keyboard melodies and/or the grooves, but it turns out that the initial effect wears off quite fast, partially also because these melodies get repeated quite a lot. With that being said, the album still has some very nice moments in songs like "Bloodstar," "Silver Fix," the very memorable instrumental "Ravine," and some more. I'd even call it a good album despite the flaws, but you really have to like the style; otherwise I can imagine that it really does nothing to you emotionally and musically speaking.

So in the end we have by no means a bad record here. It's an album where I pick my favourite songs from it and love listening to them from time to time, but nothing I would revisit for its specialty throughout the record. If you are into Shade Empire or into symphonic/melodic black metal with the addition of catchy keys, it's definitely worth a listen.