Shadowmare have released Transfiguration, their third album, eleven years after forming and three after While Trapped Inside. They are a quartet now, having lost members in between, and the record was written that way.
The seven songs are shorter and harder than the previous two albums without losing the technical writing the band is known for, which is the harder trick of the two. Most bands that thin out either simplify or overcompensate. Metal Hammer Italia, which carried the announcement, says the lyrics follow the band through the years that produced the change, from the difficulties to the decision to keep going.
There is one guest. Poli Correia sings on "Sacrificar Para Ganhar", the only song on the record in Portuguese, which sits at the centre of the tracklist rather than at the end where a feature usually goes.
The band remain unsigned, which for melodic death and thrash out of the Algarve is the normal condition rather than a setback. Three albums with no label behind them is the number that matters here.