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Shadowland - Edge of Night

Written by Charlie O'Mara

Track Listing:

A Matter of Perspective
The Hunger
The Whistleblower
Mephisto Bridge
The Kruhulick Syndrome
The Waking Hour
Painting by Numbers
Hall of Mirrors
The Edge of Night
U.S.I.
The Seventh Year
Jigsaw
Dreams of the Ferryman
Ring of Roses

Extras : Interview with Clive & Karl, Live @ De Boerderij, Photo Gallery, Desktop Images, Discography, Biography

Shadowland were one of the best prog bands of the 90s and I have distant memories of spray painting jigsaw peices black, and sticking them onto black video cases for the first Shadowland vhs release, way back in 199-something. Their joint-headline tours with Jadis are near legendary, and it was a shame when they fell to the wayside as Arena, Pendragon andThreshold took off.

So it was good to see them back earlier this year. I caught them at Riff's back in February. After that they headed off across Europe, including a night in Katowice, Poland, where the Metal Mind Productions crew caught up with them.

A Matter Of Perspective opens the show, with Clive Nolan and Mark Westwood alone on the stage, until the stage light up for The Hunger, and the rest of the band - Mike Varty on keyboards, Karl Groom on guitar and Nick Harradence on drums - come into focus. The camerawork captures the band perfectly, it seems that every member of the band is given equal airtime via a varitey of close ups, swoops, pans and long range shots. The Whistleblower is the perfect song to give Clive a chance to stomp his way around the stage.

As Clive says in the introduction to the next track, Mephisto Bridge, the short tour they did this year finally gave them the chance to play songs from their third album, Mad As A Hatter, and it sounds good. I didn't even know they had a third album until I saw them at Riff's this year. Or maybe I had just forgotten, I was fairly busy back then.

The band whizz thru Kruhulick Syndrome and The Waking Hour before playing Painting By Numbers. In the introduction to this, Clive talks about his hero, Dorian Grey, before uncovering a painting of him done by one of the crowd. This will his Dorian Grey. At this point, I thought they would lunch into Dorian Grey, a track that Shadowland did for an SI Magazine compilation album back in the 90s.

The Ring of Roses epic Hall of Mirrors shimmers its way in next, its 14 minutes of twists and turns keeping the crowd on their toes, or at least on the edge of their seats. This is followed by a new song, The Edge Of Night (available on the Matter of Perspective compilation album) and a couple from the third album, U.S.I and The Seventh Year.

The classic Jigsaw follows along next, evoking memories of the dark and dank Marquee gigs. Clives gives a great introduction the closing number, Dreams of the Ferryman before the band leave the stage, only to return for an excellent Ring of Roses, sans dance unfortunately!

An excellent show, excellently captured!

The extras on the DVD include another concert, filmed at the wonderful De Boerderij in the Netherlands. Here you can see the band bounce their way thru The Hunger, Whistleblower, Mephisto Bridge, Kruhulick Syndrome, Waking Hour, Painting by Numbers, Hall of Mirrors and Edge of Night in front of a packed and lively Dutch audience

Also on the DVD is a 17 minute interview with Clive and Karl, talking about the history of Shadowland, and the ubiquitious Biography, Discography and others

The DVD is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and comes as a standard DVD or as a Limited DVD+2CD edition, which includes 2 bonus audio live CDs recorded during the gig.

Shadowland are back out on the road in 2010, playing the following dates: