(((O))) Review: Seven Sisters – Shadow Of A Fallen Star Pt.2

When I think of the powering sounds of hard rock, death, thrash, progressive, symphonic, and doom metal, I think of bands like Iron Maiden, Within Temptation, Blood Incantation, Blood Ceremony, Edenbridge, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Metallica, and of course Gojira who stole the show last year in the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. But one band that’s like a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode at any second is a group that has been around for 11 years now in their hometown in West London.

That band is Seven Sisters. Since their launch, the band have released three studio albums from 2014 with their sole self-titled debut to the first part of Shadow of a Fallen Star, Part 1 in 2021. Listening to their music, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It sounded like it was recorded in the mid-80s during the NWOBHM (new wave of British heavy metal) movement or elements of the power metal genre that comes to mind from the realms of Blind Guardian and the Paul Di’Anno-era of Maiden’s first two studio albums.

Their latest follow-up is a continuation of the Fallen Star story released on the Cherry Red sub-label Dissonance Productions. Like an alternate soundtrack to the graphic novel of Tom King’s story from DC Comics entitle Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Shadow of a Fallen Star Part 2 is the imaginative movie inside your head when you put this bad boy on your phone, record player, or your CD player and turn it up to 11.

Eerie synths, spooky arrangements, spaghetti western clean guitar lines fill the void on the opening track ‘Astral Prophecies’ for the few minutes of the song before kicking into overdrive with its mighty, epic riffs, galloping drum exercise, and the ride into the shadows in which McNeill goes for the goal on his vocal arrangements. Its doubling guitar lines makes it return to the sounds of Thin Lizzy, Blind Guardian, and Maiden’s golden-era that’ll make you want to dig out your old records to see what you’ve been missing.

Christou leads the charge and gives both Farmer and McNeill all the ammunition they need to lead in those arpeggiated textures and riff power into the void like being sucked into the massive black hole that awaits us in Cygnus X-1. Then, rev up your engines with massive amounts of fire power to embark on the ‘Astral Winds’ that is heading towards the castle.

At first it starts heavy, but it starts into a mysterious tone, setting up the crystalised caves that haven’t been seen for decades. You feel the heavy strong winds approaching, the coldness, the massive snow storms, the ascending climb towards to confront the heavy terror embarking the castle, waiting to prey in the danger that’s coming.

The midsection is where the preparation of boarding up everything begins to start. They’re making sure the storm doesn’t destroy any inch of the castle tower that once was, has now become a battlefield in the middle of the storm to fight it off with all of its might. Then, ‘Heart of the Sun’ comes straight towards the Di’Anno-era like a bat out of hell ready to raise terror, honouring the master, the legend, and the spirit of giving Maiden its voice before Dickinson a chance to step in.

I wouldn’t compare Seven Sisters to Maiden, because that would be much a cop out. But Seven Sisters are their own sound when it comes to the metal genre. And believe me, they know their excellence of the progressive genre, top to bottom. Yet Seven Sisters show a bit of a nod to the Canadian duo Crown Lands that comes to mind when it gets to the galloping embrace in which they truly hold dear to.

The 20-minute closer ‘Andromeda Descending (A Fallen Star Rises)’ is where Seven Sisters embrace their own version of an adult-animated sci-fi action adventure in their heads, continuing the legacy of Taarna’s story from the 1981 cult classic, Heavy Metal. It opens up the battle of a massive blood fest that’s enduring in front of the listener’s eyes knowing that the warrior herself has come a long way to bring justice to the city that was destroyed in a disturbing gorefest.

Then, massive thrash attacks that speak of the Bay Area scene of the early 1980s. Think the Kill ‘Em All-era of Metallica serving beer, tea, and biscuits to both Diamond Head and Angel Witch on a strict-plant based diet as they recorded this track in a cottage in the middle of a heavy snow storm outside of Sheffield, but creating this killer form of music that’s waiting to be born.

It switches into this ambient, clean guitar texture setting up the deadly aftermath in which we have witnessed, knowing the soldiers who fought this brave battle, will suffer shock trauma and their lives will never be the same, ever again. The highest notes with its complex signature in the guitar solo, does bring to mind of Brian May’s fretwork in which it comes in handy.

Once it goes into the Powering riffs and harpsichord’s coming out of the ocean, you know something serious is about to happen. This ain’t the Scorpions mind you; this is brutal as brutal it can really be. And boy, do we love brutality like no other. But nods as I’ve mentioned to both Blind Guardian and Edenbridge with the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son-era with its operatic form.

Ryan T. Hancock’s artwork for the album, says it all, it paints different pictures when you couldn’t stop looking at the cover, realising the beauty, the tragedy, and the downfall of what the castle went through. It made me realise that art can tell a story, similar what I went through as a kid discovering Led Zeppelin’s magnum opus Houses of the Holy with its striking cover designed by Hipgnosis.

There’s a lot of greatness in here. Mind you, I’m very new to Seven Sisters’ music and let me just say they had taken me on a roller-coaster ride like no other. Be prepared to witness the wonder and mystery of Seven Sisters’ continuation on the Shadow of a Fallen Star. If you want proof, just ask Diamond Head’s Brian Tatler and he’ll tell you how damn good Seven Sisters really are.