“Shadow Moses” by Bring Me the Horizon

"Shadow Moses" was the opening salvo for Sempiternal, Bring Me the Horizon's fourth album, landing on RCA as its first single on 11 January 2013. Oliver Sykes wrote it with guitarist Lee Malia and keyboardist Jordan Fish, and it was among the first songs they came up with for the record. The title is a gamer's in-joke, borrowed from the place where most of Metal Gear Solid, the 1998 video game, unfolds, and the opening vocal line nods to that game's closing theme.

Terry Date produced and recorded it and David Bendeth mixed, and the metalcore bones get dressed up big: a guest string section and the Capital Voices choir swell around Matt Kean's bass and Matt Nicholls' drums, while the album's title keeps coming back like a mantra. Critics loved it, and it has become a fixture of the band's live sets.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.