In the zine biz, you hear a lot about bands who are supposed to be the "future of heavy metal". If I had a buck for every time I heard that, I could buy myself my own harem of Japanese geisha girls. But sometimes, it does happen that way and Shadows Fall is happily one of those occasions. Along with Nevermore, these guys are fast emerging as Kings of the American metal scene. "The Art of Balance" is a great second album for them, so thoroughly metal that it brings a lump to my throat. The songs are still complex but lack the angular jerkiness of their debut. It's a cheerful mixture of classic thrash riffing, speed metal melody and hardcore anger in equal measure, chock full of beautiful lead guitar soloing recalling the classic days of Megadeth. Plenty of chugga-chugga thrash picking reminds the listener of Metallica back in the days when they could actually play thrash instead of bashing out muddy noise. Vocalist Brian Fair veers from harsh angry shouts to appealing clean vocals to deathly growling with nary a hairy moment...a pleasure to hear.