Shadowdances – Burning Shadows [EP / Re-Release]

Artist: Shadowdances
Country: Lithuania
Label: Inferna Profundus Records
Formats: LP
Year: 2025

Life can hit you right in the face in the most wonderful ways at unexpected moments. For me, in these times of war and general polarization, or just some heavy winter blues, records like ‘Burning Shadows’ can make the whole thing feel much more bearable. Shadowdances was a band that I never saw before, but the appealing old school cover art drew me to it. When I hit the play button I was astonished by the great authentic music contained within this record. Some Doom/Death Metal that was reminiscent to the mid-90’s era of adventurous experimentalism and avant-gardism. But, while the record was playing I went on to do some archival research and the outcome made things a lot more clear.

Shadowdances was built upon the ruins of Conscious Rot, of which I found their last ‘The Soil’-demo from 1994 in my own collection, and ‘Burning Shadows’ is the band’s debut EP, originally released in 1996. Well, that makes sense. Musically this fits seamlessly within the generation of Doom/Death Metal bands of the early to mid-90’s who kept widening their vision on the genre. There is a certain amount of progressiveness, a good dash of Folk influences and considerably more melodic parts compared to the early founders of the genre, in other words: the Peaceville Three, Paradise Lost, Anathema and My Dying Bride.

Instead Shadowdances fits way better amongst bands like Phlebotomized, Dissolving Of Prodigy, Silent Streams Of Godless Elegy, Enchantment, early Orphaned Land, Cryptic Tales and Forgotten Silence – or even Type O Negative or Jack Frost from Austria. Bands that shared a similar penchant of either gloomy, folk-inspired music or a strong sense for melodicism in combination with solid Death/Doom Metal characteristics. On ‘Burning Shadows’ that all culminates into a few songs of excellent forward thinking music that also have some obvious similarities with bands such as Edge Of Sanity, Pan.Thy.Monium and Dark Millennium. Maybe a bit less heavy on those overly jazzy antics, Shadowdances are definitely not stuck on the same rhythms or flows, on the contrary, the dynamics on this EP are outstanding and keeps you on your toes for the full ride.

Compared to the original EP tracks this Inferna Profundus Records released reissue has two extra tracks. It is unclear to me as to where these exactly stem from as they seem to be previously unreleased, but my guess is that they were recorded in the same session or at least closely to it as they convey the same sort of atmosphere and overall feeling.

Together these tracks make up for over half an hour of playing time that genuinely feels like a time travel. It would be ridiculous to call this a forgotten classic, since it falls far short of meeting these criteria, but it does perfectly reflect a style of the music that was en vogue for a while some quarter of a century ago, but has since been forgotten or only cherished by a few. Regardless of the way you listen to Shadowdances, ‘Burning Shadows’ is a more than worthy piece of metal history unearthed by the otherwise Black Metal-oriented Inferna Profundus Records.