THE BEAST

SHADOW WARRIOR: "Cyberblade" - Reviewed By Rocka Rolla Web Zine ! Check it out here at this link: http://rockarollazine.blogspot.com/2021/03/shadow-warrior-cyberblade-2020-ossuary.html

From the east of Poland, specifically from the city of Lublin, these samurai warriors of heavy metal give us their promising first album entitled "Cyberblade". The band's breakthrough has been fulminant: founded in January 2019 by drummer Zdzis-aw Krzy-anowski with guitarist Marcin Puszka, They released a single and the EP "Return Of The Shadow Warrior" and late last year, with Anna Klos's lineup completed on vocals, Krzysztof Aftyka on guitar and Karol Zmaczyski on bass, released their acclaimed debut, preceded by another pair of singles and an album recorded live in the studio.
Titles such as Squadrons Of Steel, Headless Riders and Demon's Sword leave little room for second readings: as they define themselves, their style is "pure, raw and classic heavy metal" craving the sound of the eighties with inevitable echoes of the early Warlock and bands like their compatriot Crystal Viper.
The album begins with narrations in different languages as an intro to trace the concept of the album and starts with the enchanting main melody of the title track and that riffage heir to Running Wild accompanying the stanzas. Demolition Hammer passes before us like an exhalation with its very tough riff, impassable bass line and full-performance battery. Its bridge is marked by fantastic broken tones and the chorus is again simple but effective, melodic and catchy.
The bass and drums strongly support iron hawk Rising's becoming with the choruses giving the replica to Anna's voice in the main verse that will scale several notes when repeated in the run-up. At this point we can assure you that Klos, whose vocal thesis shows a clean record between the mid and high tones and ripped to aggressively attack the stanzas, is a fundamental piece in the band machinery.
Storm omens give way to I Am The Thunder with a playful riff and relentless bass notes, another being chorus and a central part where the four and six strings are exchanged alone staging their particular ketjutsu combat. For its part, Squadrons Of Steel has a certain resabio to Motorhesed, with a voice first above the chords and that great bass interruptus that predesses the arrival of the main verse.
The chibbles of the hammers that forge Demon's Sword introduces us to a half-time of muscular guitars and dense cadence where the chants devised to be accompanied by shouting voice merge into a good shared solo. Headless Riders' motorcycle aceleron features the band putting all the meat on the grill and Flight Of The Steel Samurai begins with a few brief arpeggiated notes and takes us through Anna Klos' throat for various musical reasons to the epic chorus, while the final story is as outro with which the album ends.
Based on the premise that it is a first elepé, we are faced with a great work, brief in its duration and simple in its execution, but evocative and uplifting for the ears of any warrior of the former metal guard.
Shadow Warrior katanas look sharp and with "Cyberblade" they are willing to fight for metal without taking prisoners! - Rocka Rolla Web Zine

Shadow Warrior is the classic heavy metal attack in the vein of early Accept, Iron Maiden, Saxon and Warlock. The band was formed in 2019 and made their recording debut with 5-song EP “Return of the Shadow Warrior”, which lyrics were based directly on history and culture of Japan. The album, initially self-released by the band in limited 100 copies, turned out to be a hit and in 2 weeks span it was totally sold out. Soon afterwards the band started to gain attention of classic heavy metal record labels from all over the world – this yielded in reissue of their EP for Asian, South American and European markets, released by Spiritual Beast, Burning Leather and Heathen Tribes respectively on CD, vinyl and MC.

By early 2020 Shadow Warrior made contact with Japanese heavy metal legend, Metalucifer, which resulted in 7” vinyl single “Heavy Metal Typhoon”, which featured Metalucifer/Sabbat lead singer Gezolucifer on vocals and iconic metal collector, Neal Tanaka, on the album cover.

By mid-2020 the band finished recording of their full-length debut album, “Cyberblade”. The album, featuring 35 minutes of premiere material encapsuled in 8 songs, was recorded and mixed in HiGain Studio (Białystok, Poland) by Janusz Grabowski and Marcin Grygoruk. The album will be released on 18 th November 2020 by Spiritual Beast (CD) for Japanese market and by Ossuary Records (CD/MC/digital) for everywhere else. The album was preceded by the 7” vinyl single “I Am the Thunder”.

“Each song of the Shadow Warrior is filled with great, sharp riffs and memorable melodies, just the way traditional heavy metal is supposed to be!” - Heavy Metal Pages

“Many bands with a lot bigger experience can be envious of Shadow Warrior’s phenomenal start” - Metal Up! Magazine

“Shadow Warrior is pure and brutally honest heavy metal, which might soon stir the scene quite a bit!” - Burnn! Magazine

“The only negative here is the length of the album – it’s not long enough!” - Rubber Axe Web Zine

“Their debut is a very strong entry in the heavy metal world” - Deaf Forever

Line-up:

Anna Kłos – lead vocals
Marcin Puszka -  guitar / backing vocal
Krzysztof “Chris” Aftyka - guitar / backing vocal
Karol Zmaczyński - bass / backing vocal
Zdzisław Krzyżanowski - drums

Band: Shadow Warrior
Album: „Cyberblade"
Country: Poland
Genre: Oldschool Heavy Metal
Label: Ossuary Records
Premiere: November 18th 2020

Follow the band at these links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShadowWarriorPL
Bandcamp: https://shadowwarrior.bandcamp.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shadowofthewarrior

http://ossuaryrecords.com/en/