As someone who listens to a lot of music, I was told as I grew older, my music tastes would grow into softer, more gentle tastes, but I can say that is far from the truth. In the last three to four years, my taste for music has gotten heavier and more aggressive and I’ve discovered wonderful metal genres like pirate metal, pagan metal, dwarf metal to name a few and while I still consider it all under the umbrella of good ol’ rock-n-roll, there will always be another band or artist that comes along and introduces me to another world.
That band is Forgotten Shrine.
Forged in folk metal and inspired by fantasy, mediaeval folklore, and religion, the duo of Sofia Fraz (aka Exiled Hope) and Josh Alexander have released debut track, “Where Shadows Lie.”
Of the song, Josh explains,
“‘Where Shadows Lie’ is about facing the forces of darkness head-on, even though it seems like the world is falling apart, and all of our heroes aren’t who we had thought they were.”
He further adds,
“I wrote the main hook of ‘Where Shadows Lie’ when I was a teenager, and have played it on various instruments since then. It wasn’t until the end of 2022 that I really started getting into music production and started working on WSL. At that time Amazon’s Rings of Power was releasing, and I felt very passionate about the lack of a faithful adaptation the show was. I stopped working on it for a long time after the final episode released, and the end credit song coincidentally shared the title of the song I had already written and started recording.”
With Sofia’s clean and harsh vocals, “Where Shadows Lie” is not only a heavy song, by god it’s a jaunty little ditty. I mean it’s unbelievably catchy and I dare say the first metal song I’ve heard where I just want to skip through a field of lavender and battle what comes my way.
What makes “Where Shadows Lie” such an infectious song is two fold. Half of the responsibility rests on Sofia’s vocals and the other half rests on the duo’s skills as multi instrumentalists. If it weren’t for their combined talent, “Where Shadows Lie” would fall flat, losing its musical playfulness and losing its heaviness.
My mind drifts to The Wonder Twins of The All-New Super Friends Hour and while Sofia and Josh may not be siblings, they are wonder twins in musical minds and they have activated their powers to transform mundane metal into folk metal magic.
