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Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Country: Sweden
Year: 2014
Tracklist:
1. The Shape of Things to Come
2. Neohuman
3. Limits to Infinity
4. Cryonic Harvest
5. The Spiral Timeshift
6. Children of the Integrated Circuit
7. Neuromancers
8. Technocalyptic Cybergeddon
...And so, after the longest pause this band has ever taken, Scar Symmetry releases another album on its way down to an unattractive progressive and melodic style.
There's no doubt about the quality loss the band's
last disks have suffered. It's been a non-stop fall from the awesomeness of Symmetric In Design, and it seems that there's no way to stop it.
But, don’t be mistaken. This new album, as well as all the last previous ones, isn't an awful work; however, this is not one more mediocre piece of crap. Despite a few sweet spots, there’s nothing really mind blowing, no landmark or inflection point, but the quality and variety in composition have improved greatly, as well as the audio and technical complexity, even though it presents a modern song structure with little or no variation at all. The three years that the realization of this work took, were worth it… more or less.
Paradoxically, the choruses are the weakest point, and the riffs the strongest one, followed by some decent bridges. This has been recurrent and increasing in the last albums, but in “Cryonic Harvest”, it’s too much to bear, it’s just disgusting and ruins the whole song. If you like Melodic Death Metal, and you are listening to a Melodic Death Metal band -a bit progressive but not so much-, to hear that kind of awful shit AS A SONG CHORUS!!.. is like to be kicked on the balls (or tits)... by a racing horse! C'mon! That’s something that should never happen, there is a reason for the “chorus” to exist. Still, it occurs and more often with every new release. The other songs, but “Neohuman”, have the same issue of having no good refrain, so you’ll have to listen, at least three times per song, to a crappy melody
This band has always characterized because of the mix of heavy riffs with harsh vocals and melodic choruses with clean vocals, brought from the Nü Metal. That’s not necessarily compatible with a Melodic Death Metal style, it depends on how it’s executed. Bands like Deadlock and Crematory have done it flawlessly in many occasions, and so it did Scar Symmetry in its firsts two albums. But now, some of their melodies aren’t compatible anymore with the liking of a death metal (of any kind) fan, and the melodic or the progressive style aren’t the problem. Check out the bridge in the song “burn” of Septic Flesh; it’s very melodic and calm but also it fits perfectly with the dark and aggressive band’s style, breaking the song while doing so.
These childish tunes, used more and more often by Scar Symmetry, are incompatible with the Melodic Death Metal style and even with the same song in which they are. It goes something like this: you start listening to a decent melodeath song, nice riffs, nice vocals, and when the time for the chorus arrives… PAFF!! a slap in your face! you hear Kinder Garden music! It’s so joyful, so childish, so nice and tender, you don’t know what you are hearing anymore. A melodeath song? Or a kiddy song about fantasy, stars and other shiny things (lyrics's recurrent thematic).
The number of songs infected by this tenderness is too big, increases with every new album, and drives always anyone who listened in awesomeness to their first disk. “The Anomaly”, “Domination Agenda”, “Fear Catalyst”, “Cryonic Harvest”, “Sculptor Void” and “Frequencyshifter”, are just some of the most lovely (in the worst of ways) songs of this decaying music group.
This, in conjunction with the predominant use of the flat and untalented Lars Palmqvist’s voice (clean vocals), produces one of the worst human emotions ever.
Some bridges deserve also special attention. The one from “Neohuman”, is more than three minutes long, it’s awesome and justifies the whole song (more than the chorus does). It’s complex, varied, and at some point beautiful. It’s really the album's life saver. Other one is from “The Spiral Timeshift”; it’s not as good as the previous one, but still it has variety and contains a very nice guitar solo. At last, the one from “Neuromancers” also shines.
About the album structure, it’s nothing like what the band has shown before. It has an introductory track, as well as an instrumental interlude (which is strangely the second best song). In addition, the other tracks are very lengthy, two of them surpassing 8 minutes of playback time. It’s refreshing, of course, to have this kind of variation once in a while. However, the last song “Technocalyptic Cybergeddon”, could have been very easily divided in two different songs, with no musical link between those two parts.
Even though this work has just 8 tracks, of which one is a short intro, and another one is an interlude, this isn’t an EP, but a full-length album. In fact, it has an acceptable play time of a bit more than 43 minutes. For this amount of content and quality, the price of $10 bucks at amazon.com, is bearable.
What undoubtedly has been improved in this release is the audio. The results of the equalization and the mixing are far better than in the previous work, delivering a deep sound but also acoustic balance. The bass sounds powerful but clean, the guitars strong enough, and the drums always good enough (however, it’s obvious the decision of not make them a relevant instrument). Besides Symmetric In Design and Pitch Black Progress, this is work has, without any doubt, the better sound of all the discography.
In sum, the first album of the announced trilogy is far better than Dark Matter Dimensions and The Unseen Empire, maybe being close to Holographic Universe, but it’s also far from being this group’s best one. The ensemble has freshen up its music a bit, with a good audio, some awesome bridges, a different album structure and a more technical and complex composition.
Finally…
The best song: Neohuman
The worst song: Cryonic Harvest
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