In contradiction to Hell Within’s debut Asylum Of The Human Predator, of which I thought it was quite an underground release, I now got the feeling that its successor Shadows Of Vanity has been brought a lot more commercially. Not strange, because Hell Within has grown big time since its first release, due to a lot of touring and the additional media-attention.

My view on the nine tracks that appear on this cd is quite mixed. The production is excellent and the songs are groovy and catchy. Maybe a bit too catchy even, that’s why I’ve got this feeling about holding a commercial baby in a carton package in my hands. Their metalcore combined with melodic guitars and some thrash rhythms here and there makes me think that I got myself a new Trivium or Avenged Sevenfold record.

Opener and also titletrack ‘Shadows Of Vanity’ kicks in with furious drums and some deep growls, before it declines in what I call ‘typically Hell Within’: powerful and quickly varied vocal lines layered on thrash influenced metalcore. Furthermore all songs have their cool and tedious parts. For example ‘My Exit In Red’ starts extremely aggressive and is for sure excellent mosh stuff. Not long after during the same song I hear melodies that bore me way too soon. Number three ‘Lay Down Your Arms’ commences as an emotional track while ‘For The Taking’ features some great riffs and is truly one of the toughest tracks on the album.

All in all I stick to the word “catchy”. This record does not feature any song that stands out above the rest, neither does it feature a weak song. Just over half an hour of mainstream metalcore that will appeal a lot of mainstream loving kiddo’s.