Prog4you.com - Progressive Rock Review

Shift F7 is a Canadian duo, and they started recording their debut album "Crimson Diablo" in 2006, and in 2008 the album was finished and released for sale on CDBaby and iTunes.

The band seems to have been influenced by many different artists; or perhaps it would be more fair to say that they have been influenced by artists who in turn have been influenced by many artists; as I somehow doubt that the band is familiar with all similarities I found while going through this one. Most often the songs on this album made me think of REM and Madrugada, while at times Leonard Cohen and Frank Zappa came to mind; and even a few instances where I heard some slight touches of The Doors.

As one may suspect from the above list here, the music on this album is of the dark kind. Indie rock style slightly mellow guitar riffs, mostly atmospheric guitar licks, a strong bass line and effective drums is the foundation of the tunes here, with some keyboard textures added at times and vocals that to a lesser or stronger degree have a spoken word quality. All elements are gathered in songs that mostly stay on the mellow side, with a distinct emphasis on creating a dark and bleak soundscape, adding effects like eerie sounding keyboard textures or slightly disturbing guitar sounds to create songs with an ominous atmospheric quality.

The songs, although on the short side, all have a repetitive quality to them, with mostly slight variations from verse to chorus and not much evolvement from start to finish - these tunes are about exploring a set mood rather than evolving towards one.

Sometimes this works rather well, and sometimes it doesn't really come together. Broken Parts is the track where everything gels smoothly, and is my recommended tune. Cure for the Pure, A Fool in Love and Forevermore are other strong tunes; worth given a chance by the curious.

Rating: 6,5 (out of 10)
Reviewer: Olav Björnsen

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Discography
Crimson Diablo (2008)

(Review also featured on www.progressiveears.com)