The best of: Scar Symmetry

Genre: Melodic Death Metal/Power Metal

Country: Sweden

"Symmetric In Design" is an excellent work, all the way. It's complex but digestible, aggressive but melodic, technical but simple, making use of new and known elements. It's one of the most outstanding albums in the Melodic Death Metal world. It brims with new and good ideas and, each one of its songs, get stamped in the listener, thanks to very catchy riffs and choruses, which in turn distinguish those songs from each other. The audio is very good, and it's easy to note the great job made in the mixing and mastering, that helps to achieve that air of novelty that the composition itself has already made evident.

Every song feels different from each other and distinguishable, contributing not only with new ideas -within the already original composition- but also with good ones. For example, "Detach From The Outcome" is a lot more aggressive than the other pieces -specially from "Dominion-, with a chaotic style guitar solo, for which it's, up to date, unique.

Unfortunately, release after release, the new and good ideas fade away, along with the good metal fusion, and becoming a sort of power metal band with harsh vocals. The mediocre and bad melodies of this style predominate, the harsh vocals have lost relevance -although they are always present-, and the choruses are a lot "happier".

Their second album titled "Pitch Black Progress", was released no more than one year after the previous one, period that appears to have been too short. Indeed, the second album was, without doubt, a disappointment.

In it, the new and good ideas scarce. Still, it's not a bad work and it's very easy to enjoy. "The Kaleidoscopic God" has a complex song structure, closer to one of an opera than to one of a pop song, while "Deviate From The Form" approaches to a progressive style. Both are great songs and clearly stand out from the other album tracks. The other pieces do not add anything significant. Anyway, the taste that leaves listening to Pitch Black Progress is far from being as good as the one that listening to Symmetric In Design, blissfully, leaves.

The sound got worse with the second album -not too much-, and continued in that path up to the fourth release, where the audio is the worst of all. Similarly, the composition lost its luster. Apparently, this and all the future albums were always doomed, from the start, to be under the large shadow of Symmetric In Design.

The great virtue of the first disc was the deep and almost imperceptible combination of different styles and genres, mixed up with original tunes. In their later albums, some elements were lacking depth in the combination and novelty. Thus, songs with dissonant choruses and riffs appeared, like "Three Dimensional Shadow" and "Noumenon and Phenomenon" -very far from a decent progressive metal- and others so boring and with too many bad ideas such as "Mechanical Soul". Of course, the fading of the death metal side in the style, in favor of the power metal one -it suffices to hear the intro from "The Iconoclast" and its chorus to see that-, is another element to regret.

"Holographic Universe", the third album, was another disappointment . The track of the same name is undoubtedly the great album jewel, but appears to have been hastily completed. Just comparing it with Kaleidoscopic God it's enough to realize that, in similar circumstances, the band delivered a much better product.

"Dark Matter Dimensions", it's a junk, a bigger one than the previous album. In this disk. all that was Scar Symmetry in 2005 is completely lost. Bad composition; repetitive riffs; discordant, unattractive and boring choruses; extensive use of unadmirable and mediocre clean vocals; never remarkable guitar solos; and a too flat sound...In sum, a bad album.

“The Unseen Empire”, the last album, in both the audio and the overall composition, tops its predecessor, but still it does not compare to Symmetric In Design .

Once again, in the history of a band, the first work is the best one, even though, in this case, there was no line-up change. Generally, the good ideas don't abound, and require of some time to mature and flourish. In six years, Scar Symmetry released five albums; a big quantity, but with a very low quality.

1. Chaosweaver (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
2. Reborn (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
3. Obscure Alliance (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
4. Hybrid Cult (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
5. Detach From The Outcome (Symmetric In Design - 2005)
6. The Kaleidoscopic God (Pitch Black Progress - 2006)
7. Deviate From The Form (Pitch Black Progress - 2006)
8. Holographic Universe (Holographic Universe - 2008)
9. The Consciousness Eaters (Dark Matter Dimensions - 2009)
10. Seers Of The Echaton (The Unseen Empire - 2011)



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