While most turn to Sweden as the hot spot for Melodic Death Metal bands like Dark Tranquillity, At the Gates, and In Flames, no one should overlook Germany’s Night in Gales. Highly underrated, Night in Gales is on the presumptuous of celebrating its thirtieth anniversary in 2025.
A milestone for any band, in the last three decades Night in Gales has done nothing but produce one superb album after another. Starting with 1997’s Towards the Twilight, each follow-up release has been full of outstanding melodic guitars and darkly woven atmospheres. Fast forward to 2023, Night in Gales put out the impressive The Black Stream through Apostasy Records. At that point their third album in five years, before you can even blink, they are back in 2024 with another full-length album called Shadowreaper.
Set for release on December 6, 2024, again through Apostasy Records, it has been a little more than a year since The Black Stream. With that in mind, you would have to think that the songs that make up Shadowreaper were kicked around ideas during The Black Stream sessions… because who can kick out an entirely new album that quickly? Whatever the case, when a band releases material so close together, they risk the loss of quality. Just the way of matters, amazingly Night in Gales’s Shadowreaper does not fall into this trap.
A solid collection of nine songs, you could argue that these are impressive if not more than The Black Stream. Clearly an extension of that album, the mood is stunningly dark with a genuine attack that pulls you in. This time bringing in Fredrik Nordström to handle the production (instead of Dan Swanö who exceptionally worked on the last four Night in Gales albums), you are left feeling all the right strings were pulled.
Why? Because to keep everything fresh you sometimes need to change around the furniture, and that includes bringing in a new perspective. Doing that, Nordström’s production gives you an album that is highly reminiscent of his early work with In Flames, on albums such as 1999’s Colony, or Dark Tranquillity, for their 2000 album Haven.
Painting that visual soundscape in your mind, the songs themselves on Shadowreaper match one another blow for blow with one memorable melodic riff after another. This is immediately thrown at you with the album’s pre-released single “Into The Evergrey” before mounting counterattacks with songs like “The Nihilist Delta,” “Open The Sun,” and “Walk Of Infinity.” Defined by the duel guitars of Frank and Jens Basten, the drumming of Adriano Ricci matched with the bass lines of Tobias Bruchmann is also nothing to overlook. An extremely tight-knit bunch, with Christian Müller back on vocals since 2018’s The Last Sunsets, Night in Gales is stronger than ever.
So, if you think it would be impossible to top what Night in Gales did with The Black Stream, think again… because Shadowreaper does. Authentic Melodic Death Metal the way it was intended, Cryptic Rock gives Shadowreaper 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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