SHADOWS
Chilean epic occult heavy metal enigma Shadows arose in 2021 around the flourishing heavy metal scene of Santiago, a place where by tradition heavy metal and dark occult crafts have always found fertile ground. Shadows emerged as the brainchild of local veteran and multiinstrumentalist Cristian Silva, the leader and founding member of legendary Chilean trash/speed metal cult Apostasy, a band he’s lead uninterruptedly through various decades, lineups and hiatuses since at least 1988, confirming his status of veteran and legend of his scene. Like for every true metalhead, thrash is however far from being Silva’s only love, far from. After reuniting Apostasy around 2018 and getting that project back off the ground, Silva eventually realized that his long running and decades old undying passion for earlier proto-heavy metal from the 70’s (Scoprions, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper) and the more occult and esoteric variants which arose shortly thereafter in the early 80’s (Mercyful Fate and King Diamond, Satan, Death SS, etc.) also needed an outlet, which he decided to materialize via a dedicated and separate new project. This lead him to create Shadows as a new solo outlet rounded out by various studio collaborators, also choosing the pseudonym John Shades to differentiate it from his tenure in Apostasy. The project materialized in 2021 with the self titled three-track demo, self-released digitally on the band’s Bandcamp as “My Shadow Will Rise” and later released physically as a limited edition cassette tape on Silva’s own label Cabalist records as “Into the Nightmare” as its new title, the demo’s final name. Because of Sentient Ruin’s and Apostasy pre-existing collaboration on the “Death Return” LP, Silva and the label also struck up a collaboration to release the “Into the Nightmare” demo tape in the Northern Hemisphere as well, and the release materliazed shortly afterward with brand new artwork and enhanced liner notes in early 2020.