Ok, so I receive this new promo from a band I've never heard of before, it looks cool, cool artwork, cool name and title. They are signed with Nuclear Blast and the accompanying material looks professional, I see that most of the musicians have played in other bands, I especially notice the name Henrik Ohlsson who played in
Theory in Practice, one of my all-time favorite bands. Looking good, this could be really good. I read on and then I stumble over the fateful words, talking about singer Christian Älvestam: "He switches back and forth between angry and aggressive growls to harmonic and clean vocals.". Oh fuck. The other times I've seen that in press material, it has turned out to be some annoying numetal crapband. Anyways, I give it a listen. After all, the press material mentioned good stuff like blazing virtuoso guitar soloing, huge synthesizers, complex but catchy rythms.
It turns out that Christian Älvestam is one of the very, very few singers who can match the best powermetal singers and at the same time do really good growls. His growls vary from really deep to high screams and he does both really well. I'm not saying too much when I claim that Christian is one of the best growlers out there! And his clean vocals would make most power/prog metal bands very happy.
I admit I'm a sucker for a good guitar solo. Guitarists Jonas Khellgren and Per Nilsson really show what they can do here, the solo style is most impressive, few guitarists are capable of delivering such a melodic blur of notes, and at the same time making it sound so easy. That's the mark of true virtuosos. So if impossibly beautiful guitar solos turn you on, get ready to cum in your pants listening to this. Talking solos, the difference between the two guitarists is very clear. While Jonas Kjellgren favors straight ahead rock 'n roll solos, Per Nilsson goes for the virtuoso style with plenty of weird arpeggios, tapping and jazzy input here and there, still keeping it wonderfully melodic and beautiful. They complement each other well, but still part of me wouldn't mind if Per Nilsson had taken all of the solos... Man, that guy can play!
Scar Symmetry is not easily defined to a single genre. From time to time they play plain powermetal with everything that entails: High-pitched vocals, lots of keyboards, plenty of double-bass drums over nice chord progressions. I guess that the sound is also a big part here, the production could have been from any new
Kamelot/
Angra/
Evergrey/
Rhapsody/(Insert favorite powermetal act here). Generally very smooth sounding with excellent sound on all instruments, that is, excellent sound for a powermetal album. So when
Scar Symmetry then goes all out death metal, it sounds... well... like a death metal band playing on a power metal album. It's a bit strange in the beginning, but for me it is working. This certainly isn't for everyone and I don't think they will sell any records to die-hard death metal fans. But for the adventurous ones, give it a chance. If you like it, it's really good :)
This is a listen before you buy. Not because it isn't a fantastic album but because of the style. For those who can't take the 'cookie monster' vocals especially. On the other hand, if you want to take a chance and see what's the lure with all that death metal, here's a good entry point. Other bands in this category of bands successfully mixing clean and extreme vocals are
Into Eternity,
Opeth and
Soilwork. Die-hard death metal fans should probably also take a listen before buying since they might find the clean singing and quiet parts too soft.
Compared to their previous album,
Symmetric in Design, the songs on
Pitch Black Progress are better and sound & production, aggression, solos, clean & heavy vocals, just everything is upped a notch. Especially the clean vocals are better and the songs are a lot more catchy. The only thing I can put my finger on here is that I prefer the heavy/growling parts more and more as I get into the album, but then again I listen mostly to death/black metal these days so that was to be expected. They are good when they play the less heavy parts but when they go all out metal, they rock!!! Buy it, it's an order!
Written by
Tajs Friday, July 7, 2006
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