You gotta love it when a gamble pays off. Flirting with what could be career suicide, against the benefits of making an album “that could be a defining one for the band”? Those are big, intimidating odds, even for a band of Lord Vigo‘s relatively humble standing in the great scheme of things.

So, hats off to Vinz Clortho and company for having the cojones to take that risk. But did it pay off?

Oh yes, sir – it’s paid off big time. For a band glibly labelled ‘epic doom’ to be able to stride out and pair a couple of songs – Servant of the Dark and The Triumph of The Killing Heart – that sound like nothing so much as Simple Minds in their early eighties pomp is nothing short of miraculous. That they do it so convincingly, with such panache and chutzpah, doubly so.

They haven’t totally thrown the baby out with the bath water – there are still moments that are both epic and, indeed, doom – but for the most part this is a riot of goth-tinged eighties post-punk mayhem. I honestly haven’t been able to stop listening to …Killing Heart since I first heard it, such is it’s power to evoke memories of cider-fuelled parties of years long gone. It’s an absolutely belter of a song that, if you know about this sort of thing, is going to be at the top of your playlists for the rest of the year.

Clortho pitches his voice perfectly to match the dark (yet at times manically uplifting) mood of the songs, which meld names like Simple Minds, Killing Joke, Japan, Talk Talk and the Bauhaus with the band’s own flavours seamlessly; Volguus Zildrohar and demolishing any doubts‘s guitar and bass (both play both) pull their fair share of the weight, too, with the resultant avalanche of icy sound being one of the delights of what’s already shaping up to be an epic year for heavy music. I honestly can’t remember hearing a record that sounds quite like Walk In The Shadows, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Make sure you give it some ear time when it comes out later this month!

You heard the man. Walk The Shadows releases on May 30th.