Review Summary: An enjoyable listen, but with a lot of room for improvement.
Modern metal has taken to 2 distinct trends recently. One has gone towards a very mainstream, often generic path pioneered by bands such as Trivium and Avenged Sevenfold who only seem to be intent on producing albums for the die-hard fanboy. The trouble with this path is that nothing new is brought to the table – which brings me nicely onto the second path: Innovation. Instead of treading the waters of a stale sound, these bands manage to find their own sound while building on their influences. Typical bands from this group would be Opeth, Sikth, Porcupine Tree, Between the Buried and Me, who, although receiving a little hate, manage to hold the interest of many Metal fans, while branching into other genres and melodic ideas.
Scar Symmetry is a Swedish band who is sometimes referred to as Swedish Melodic Death Metal. This tag conjures up images of frantic riffs with furious double bass drumming, with a huge dollop of – yeah, you guessed it – Melody. In this way, pioneering bands In Flames, Dark Tranquillity, (early) Soilwork and At the Gates pretty much created a new genre, which is mimicked even to this day. Is
Scar Symmetry one of these carbon copies, therefore fitting into the first group outlined earlier? Well, the answer is no. While they may have a large influence from said Melodeath bands and some faint hints at modern Metalcore, they manage to combine the things that make metal a good listen rather well.
First impressions – The Illusionist: Some soothing but foreboding synth eases you in, before the whole band comes in playing the same almost melancholic melody with a very driving feel. This feel is maintain throughout the album, as if they are brutally forcing the album into your head, without the over-the-top riffage and vocals of Cannibal Corpse. All of a sudden, you are sonically beaten by a groovy death metal section: pummelling downtuned guitars and Death vocals are the theme here. The prechorus enters, which utilises a fairly generic melodic idea, but vocalist Christian Alvestam (now ex-Scar Symmetry) pulls out his clean vocals for a large, almost operatic sound. This continues again until you reach a very catchy chorus that recalls the intro melody. After another round you reach a very expansive middle section with a slow solo drenched in feeling, showing that the guitarists are a capable of more than just heavy riffs. A superb vocal line next, followed by a shred solo over a variation of the groove earlier. The last chorus is extended with some extra emotional vocals over the top, before descending into the variation groove riff from after the solo.
From this, you can tell they are more than just a one trick pony. While they aren’t merging Metal with other genres, they certainly are making use of as much elements of Metal as they can with the slower and faster parts, the groove, and the dynamic vocals. Opener
The Illusionist is undoubtedly one of the highlights of
Pitch Black Progress, and a great representation of the album as a whole. But that’s not all that the album has going for it. The intense Death vocals in the chorus of
Calculate the Apocalypse – arguably the heaviest song on the album with a really Deathy main riff – is a change from the other mostly melodic choruses, although it is backed by some sweep picking to keep the Melodic feel of the band. The other choruses, despite being mostly the same format – clean vocals and distorted guitar chords – are surprisingly catchy for a band that has Death Metal elements of their sound. For example, you’ll be singing the chorus to
Slaves to the Subliminal for days afterwards, despite it’s fairly simplistic background guitars. The opening riff of this song has an Arch Enemy vibe going on, and on top of that the stomping verse riff will have you headbanging along in seconds.
Abstracted would be a fairly boring standard metal song, but because of it’s fairly short length of 3:24 it manages to keep you interested throughout with a pounding low end chug.
Now, most of this album is Scar Symmetry hinting at their potential. I say hinting because there is only one track here that truly shows their skills as a band, and that song is The Kaleidoscopic God. The first 3 minutes sound like a typical song off
Pitch Black Progress with groove mixed with tremolo picked parts and the vocal diversity. After a slower solo section and an almighty power groove, the song enters another realm. Single distorted guitar chords crossed with Violins and horns propel the song to new heights and almost conjure up a black metal feel. After this glimpse of beauty, you are pounded back into the abyss with an even more almighty groove-breakdown, before the song jumps into the 80s and unleashes some beastly old-school riffage on your ears. An extended solo section leads into a more frantic version of the beautiful melody earlier, before finally the song finishes with some parts from the beginning. True metal excellence.
Despite these praises I have been giving this album, it has a few flaws. Firstly, as I mentioned earlier,
Pitch Black Progress is full of songs that work quite well, but hint at something much better. For example, the verse and chorus of Slaves to the Subliminal are a nice combination, but the rest of the song doesn’t quite live up to it’s potential. Also, the moshy-riff-then-catchy-chorus combo isn’t as effective if it repeated for most of the album; there needs to be something new added every so often. This leads me onto my second point:
Pitch Black Progress can get a little tedious if you listen to the whole album in one sitting. I always finding myself yawning quite early on, and the cause of this is probably
Mind Machine – a song that is fun for the first few listens due to a consistent groove, but sadly becomes horribly boring with a mid-slow pace and no standout melodic ideas. This infection creeps into the title track, but thankfully is eradicated by
Calculate the Apocalypse.
Pitch Black Progress, despite it’s flaws, is still an enjoyable listen with singalong parts and fairly memorable riffs. That said, I can’t help but want more when listening to it, something to propel
Scar Symmetry into the pool of innovation – perhaps this better album will be released some time in the near future. Whatever the case, this is definitely worth some of your time to listen.
Recommended Tracks:
The Kaleidoscopic God
The Illusionist
Calculate the Apocalypse
Abstracted
3.5/5
