Review Summary: Quite a satisfying beginning of a new journey
Scar Symmetry's fanbase has been less than enthusiastic about the band since their previous vocalist's departure. And no one can blame them - not only has the vocal delivery by the new singer been generally inferior, but the songwriting suffered too, and perhaps most importantly: the production of the two post-Älvestam albums left much to be desired, detracting considerably from the listening pleasure.However, Per Nilsson, smart guy that he is, apparently wasn't deaf to all the criticism the band received and single-handedly rectified the three issues mentioned above - and I mean literally.
Not long ago, guitarist Jonas Kjellgren abandoned the band to focus on his other projects, so things looked rather grim for the band in 2013. But Per saw in it an opportunity to take all songwriting duties upon himself, going on to write
Neohumanity all on his own. Moreover, he also produced the album entirely on his own, and in an unprecedented decision even contributed his own vocals to the release. And this is big - Per does easily like 40% of all clean vocals on this outing. Now how does all this translate to the quality of the music?
The first thing that comes to mind when listening to the effort, is that the songs are less formulaic than ever - the verse-chorus sequences of the past are far less pronounced. Considering that this album is only 43 minutes long, this tendency definitely marks a sure shift towards progressive metal, which one can interpret as the band leaving their "comfort zone" of poppy metal somewhat. The pop is still there in spades, though - the chorus of "Limits to Infinity" is a copious service of 80s style cheese, and though the choruses of other songs are heavily melodic too, one could honestly and without a shade of sarcasm call them "soaring". Except "Limits to Infinity", the cheese has been cut down on quite considerably (well, depending on your definition of "cheese", anyway) - the vocal melodies are at least slightly less upbeat and happy than on the previous outings, so you don't need to be afraid of anything as cringeworthy as "The Iconoclast" or "The Anomaly". The j-rock sound has been highly reduced. Nilsson's vocal timbre is quite different from that of Palmqvist's, and honestly reminescent of Älvestam to a bigger degree than you'll care to admit, so this vocal experiment can be considered a success.
The tone of this release is mostly reminescent of
Holographic Universe and one can see clearly that Nilsson was trying to recapture the charm of that release this time. I would argue that he has largely succeeded - even though the albums cannot really be compared in terms of length and content, the songwriting quality is not far short, with a production to match. The release is also in a similar manner to HU heavily melodic, with a similar dose of brutality and clean-to-growled vocals ratio. The two long tracks included on it fully deserve their seat alongside "The Kaleidoscopic God" and "Holographic Universe" as capable entries in Scar Symmetry's long song repertoire, being very well written and rewarding.
That said -
Neohumanity is not without its flaws, though probably all of them can be considered relative and dependent on the listener's own perception. For instance the spoken word part that ends "Cryonic Harvest" hasn't been welcomed too warmly, and generally is quite pointless in purpose and weak in execution. Another detriment to the album could be the fact that "Technocalyptic Cybergeddon" is basically two songs stitched together without even a pretense of a transition - unforgivable for a band having many decent transitions under their belt ("The Kaleidoscopic God" comes to mind). Also, anyone familiar with the band's earlier work (particularly the two post-Älvestam releases) will notice that Nilsson has a regrettable tendency to plagiarize himself. Several riffs and vocal lines will strike you as too reminescent of their earlier stuff to feel comfortable with (instances: intro riff from "Technocalyptic Cybergeddon" - "Sculptor Void"; chorus vocals from "Cryonic Harvest" - "Astronomicon"; chorus vocals from "Neuromancers" - "Frequencyshifter").
However if you're able to look past these mishaps of questionable severity, you are in for quite a treat. Overall, the first part of the concept trilogy is head and shoulders above the band's two previous entries and invokes serious curiosity as to where Nilsson will take the band on the following part.
