Of all the bands that attempted to pick up the mantle of chaotic metalcore in the new millennium, Scarlet were my favourite. Because unlike their peers who were content to weakly imitate Botch and the like, Scarlet put their own unique spin on things and as a result stood out from the crowd;
Something to Lust About shows the band experimenting with electronic beats and melding their style with the newer breed of hardcore and metal to create something spectacular.
What I mean by this is that
Something to Lust About is a combination of the late 90s style of metalcore and the newer breed of core that was coming about in the early 2000s. More cleanly produced than their influences, Scarlet nonetheless have their own brand of chaos that puts them toe to toe with any heavyweights of the genre, wielding a sound that relies on a thunderingly fast storm of blast beats, complex chugging, off kilter riffs and abrasive blasts of noise that cascade over sickly vocals. The sharp production quality give Scarlet a very rounded and controlled sound, not reliant on feedback and noise to create a sense of disharmony but rather relying on the way in which they layer riffs over fluid blast beats that stop and start seamlessly to create disorder, giving them a rumbling snowballing feel. They show this best on “Carbon Copy Killer”, where everything cuts out except for one short, sharp guitar groove that suddenly cocks and breaks into the song mechanically, providing strong rhythmic force.
Other than that Scarlet show that they’re ahead of the game by incorporating electronic influence into their sound, though thankfully not in any way similar to the much hated electronicore bands of late. For example “Sell Yourself” consists of a repeating electronic beat with spacey ambience filling in the background, that's then disturbed by industrial cymbal crashes and pounding drums. The heavily rhythmic nature of the song is at odds with Scarlets usual sound but it’s a welcome departure from the chaos. Similarly, the closing track “Suicide King” also features heavy industrial influence with murmured vocals that change into distorted screams over a repeating guitar groove and fuzzy drumming.
For such a short EP (of the 6 tracks only 2 go over 2 minutes) Scarlet show a lot of promise and are a good illustration of how metalcore didn’t need to get so stale. And Scarlet themselves seem aware of this freedom to widen the genre's boundaries as they close on the line “I could be your anything”.
