Review Summary: Is the title an admission or a challenge?
Rob Scallon (or MetalInjection’s favourite son) is a little bit of a divisive figure on the internet. His brand of metal covers on ukulele, banjo, stringed spade, and basically anything that metal should traditionally not be played on is nothing new, sure, but he has a strong sense of composition and beneath the humour lies a very passionate, assuredly talented musician. However, when your very existence is crassly deified by certain sections of the online community, the ‘trve’ elitist fans tend to pop their disapproving heads out of the woodwork and disparage ability merely because it’s not to their liking: “Slayer on a ukulele? Who the f*** is this fag that dares play the music of trve gods?!” (before presumably slithering back to their sticky-with-Jack Daniels-floored, poorly drawn logo-ed band worshipping, poster-adorned bedrooms of angst in order to masturbate along to ‘South of Heaven’ for the 12th time that day.) Or something like that.
The Scene is Dead could be seen, admittedly cynically, as an attempt to be taken seriously by a potentially hostile crowd – a ‘look at what I can really do’ to a fickle audience. However, upon listening and reading the ideas and inspiration for the record it becomes very clear that we have a labour of love on our hands. This is an amped-up homage to the Chicago metal scene that Scallon grew up in – each song title being named after a former local band. Occasionally this is dressed up in a somewhat djent-y veneer (‘And Ever’ and ‘Envy’ being the main examples of this), but on the whole there’s something very disarmingly pure about the music on offer. Technically gifted as Scallon is,
The Scene is Dead never seeks to alienate or show-off at the compromise of a well-written structure. Crunchy, thrashy and gorgeously produced, this record is no attempt to take the listener on any kind of conceptual journey or confuse us to death with baffling time signatures, it merely exists to enter, crush, and leave. This is not to say the record is not without highlights – ‘Gateways’ features a fantastic star turn from Jeff Loomis, who complements Scallon’s tone perfectly, ‘JekylnHyde’ throws a theremin into the mix during a section reminiscent of System of a Down’s ‘Peephole’, and ‘Gas Mask Catalogue’ is the strongest (maybe only?) argument for ownership of an 8-string guitar, with truly perfect usage of the increased low-end towards the close of the track.
On the subject, though, there are times where it definitely feels like the record is a little bass-light - particularly on the aforementioned ‘Gateways’ - and the track ‘The Dial’ suffers from a little bit of an identity crisis, never quite managing to establish the right balance between the atmospheric clean rhythms and abrasive riffing leads, resulting in what sounds like 2 songs being played on top of one another – which is a shame as the last minute or so of the track is crushingly satisfying.
In short, Rob Scallon may look a little unassuming, downright sweet even, but the scene will never be dead in his mind, and if this record is any indication, it never will be in his output either.
