Shadow Box CD Review at CD Review on 8/16/03

By: David de Young

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Shadow Box "The Distance" Street date: August 16th, 2003

Shadow Box's 2002 4-song EP "One Promise" showed so much, uh promise that I listed it as one of my favorite releases of last year. This month, Shadowbox releases its full-length debut, "The Distance." Produced Jacques Wait and recorded at Seedy Underbelly studios in Minneapolis, the album leaves me stunned anew. Slipped into my car CD player as a companion on my Saturday morning errands, I was immediately grabbed by the inspiring opener, "Possibilities." Cooperating perfectly with the traffic flow on 35W Dmitry Iyudin's guitars and Dan Lichty's vocals helped raise my spirits as much as my coffee and the sunshine. There's a universality in Lichty's lyrics, passionate, inspired, and delivered with sincere, smooth precision that help make these songs instant contemporary anthems. "If we could just believe / in possibilities" Lichty sings on the opener, and you know that he not just believes, he wants to deliver that belief to you. "The Distance" reaffirms the salvation power of rock and roll in a post 9/11 world without naiveté or pomposity.

 

The song-writing on the new release aspires to the quality of Elvis Costello,U2, or late Echo and the Bunnymen, one trademark of which is a hit it and run approach. Find a good hook and don't repeat it, but go directly to the next one. After one listen these songs start sticking in your head, one of many reasons the band is so enjoyable live even for newcomers. If the lyrics don't get you, a hook will, and on the unlikely chance that fails, there's still Iyudin's, energetic and ringing guitar throughout.

Admirers of Shadow Box's first EP will be pleased to find a re-mix of another standout track, "One Promise" on the new CD. Otherwise, 11 songs are new. But this isn't a sophomore release, as much a powerful start in a new direction. On "The Distance" Shadowbox shine in songwriting, musicianship, production, and album pacing. These songs surpass of most of what you hear on commercial radio in an average hour. "The Distance" is an uplifting showcase of talent that is both impressive and thoroughly listenable.

Shadow Box has its CD Release Party at the 400 Bar on Saturday, August 16th, with Kid Dakota and Friends Like These.

 

 

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Location Info: CD Review
Artist Info: Shadow Box

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