A New Horizon 2010

"The Shiver's third album "A New Horizon" is a collection of insanely catchy and melodic metal tunes which have both pop elements and dark heavy metal elements. Like so many other gothic metal bans, The Shiver is fronted by a female vocalist, Faith, and she belongs to the category of female gothic metal vocalists who take a more rock-ish approach rather than the ones who take a more operatic approach or those who have soft and silky pretty voices. I must admit that I prefer the rock-oriented vocalists in this genre, so I obviously like Faith's work in The Shiver. She has a powerful voice and does not refrain from belting out catchy melodic hooklines, and she even delivers several harsh growled screams as background vocals throughout the album, which works very well. Musically, the tunes are both dark and uplifting and, true to the gothic metal genre, there are plenty of keyboards and piano effects, but these never take over and leave the guitar as the dominating instrument so you can really hear the many power chords and riffs that the music on this release revolves around. Fans of acts like Amaranthe or perhaps even melodic death metallers Deadlock might like this album, although The Shiver do not adopt the Gothenburg sound. (review originally posted at metalmusicarchives.com)"