FISHEYE

I was really looking forward to hearing the new Shining album after the excellent Grindstone and was finally able to get a first glimpse of the upcoming release with its first single!

Fisheye did take me by surprise at first since it sounded like a much heavier composition that I was used to by this point for this quartet. It was clear that the band's collaboration with Enslaved on Armageddon Concerto did inspire Shining to push their style even further towards extreme industrial metal route but I really didn't expected them to keep it up for, what would later turn up to be, almost the entire full length release.

The expanded version of Fisheye doesn't make this composition more enjoyable for me than its five minute version off the full length album, hence I can live without the additional two minutes of added grooves but it's really not a problem either. The shorter Radio Edit edition of the track, on the other hand, leaves out some of the essential moments for me and concentrates on the bone structure of the composition, which unfortunately isn't the main reason why we listen to this track to begin with.

Overall, it's a decent introduction to Blackjazz which sort of hints at what we can expect from the rest of the album, but I'll leave out the details for my next review!

**** star songs: Fisheye [Extended Version] (6:57)

*** star songs: Fisheye [Radio Edit] (3:13)