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This was the debut for Battlelore, who are easily the most Tolkien-obsessed band in the world. I can't help but picture the members of this band showing up for the movie premier in full costume, and how do I know there was some other band there?

Battlelore play their own fun flavor of metal, mixing Death, Epic, Power Metal and symphonic together to make a unique sound all their own. I suppose they could loosely be compared to other bombastic bands like Bal-Sagoth or Turisas. But really nobody sounds like Battlelore.

This is pretty much what I expected after how much I enjoyed "Sword's Song". "Where The Shadows Lie" is a lot of fun, but is not quite as good as the album that followed. This is a bit more pugilistic and not as melodic as "Sword's Song", and female singer/cutie Kaisa Juokhi is not as prominent as she would be on later works. But the overall sound is very close, and if you liked "Sword's Song", then you will enjoy this too. Not as catchy or as memorable as that album, and there is nothing here as cool as "Buccaneer's Inn" or "The War Of Wrath", but "Where The Shadows Lie" is a worthy debut.