Review Summary: The thirst is quenched a little, but scars still remain.
Disciple was a lukewarm album that really didn’t make waves either way: it wasn’t great, it wasn’t that bad, it was just your standard, middle-of-the-road inoffensive alternative metal outing.It’s main weakness resided in the lackluster ballads and lack of diversity, leading to a large amount of filler. The group made a lot of promises for the upcoming effort
Scars Remain, overall saying that it would be a heavier and darker project and would ultimately spread its wings away from the first effort.
Kevin Young provided some fairly strong vocals on the previous effort and didn’t really fall off in any area, but here, it sounds as if he is right in your face with the urgency. Parts of Disciple did sound a little boring vocally and like he wasn’t fully engaged, and to a smaller extent the problem is present here. But for the majority of the project, whether he’s screaming or crooning, he sounds fully involved and impassioned through the words he’s delivering. Admittedly, the production is beefed up considerably this time around, but Brad Noah just sounds much better on guitar himself. On
Disciple, there was such an emphasis on melody that the riffs rarely stood out. I don’t mind occasional melodic numbers where the focus is moreso on the singer (plenty of RED and Breaking Benjamin tracks do this), but an entire heavy rock album is hurt by this. On Scars Remain, Brad riffs, solos, cleanly picks, and acoustically strums as he did on the previous release, but to a much stronger and more powerful degree. Basswork still does virtually nothing, but the drums are at least a step up from before.
“Regime Change” opens the album with a roaring cannon shot: the slow build-up involving the eerily picked guitar notes followed by a combo of slowly thrashing drums and harmonics, then climaxing in a vicious scream and the guitars and drums pouring in full force. The song pushes its foot on the gas for all four minutes and also features a great bridge that blends chugging Drop C riffing with melodic, frantic soloing. This is an essential Disciple track and a fantastic intro to the album. “Love Hate (On and On)” amps up the heaviness even more, prominently featuring screams and heavy guitars, but also making room for a melodic, soaring chorus and some semi-technical palm-muted picking among the heavier riffing. Perhaps the greatest surprise of the track is the focus on both the drums and bass guitar for the beginning of the bridge. “My Hell”, similar to “Into Black” from the first release, slows things down a fair bit, carrying more of an arena rock feel than the aggression of the first two songs. Brad shifts between a soaring lead line composed of palm-muted notes, shimmering octaves, and gently finger-picked chords, focusing less on the power chords and heavy riffs. Kevin shifts to a more melodic croon then the spiked edge he normally relies on, and sounds absolutely beautiful as he declares his love for God, though there are some screams in the background of the bridge (think RED’s “Start Again” for this part). It does grow a little repetitive with the constant repeat of the chorus, but as a whole this is a strong track. “Scars Remain” gets right in the listener’s face with the heavy edge of the first two songs and pretty much only pushes itself further and further into your comfort zone as the track goes on. Kevin pretty much tears his throat apart as he shifts from brutally high screams to impassioned crooning, Brad uses power chords, palm-muted riffs, and alternate picking to maximum efficiency, and even the drums purely thrash.“After The World” is hands-down better than any of the ballads on Disciple, bleeding of ferocious, sacrificial love and undeniable passion. One of my only complaints with the track is that I feel that Kevin is trying a little too hard to channel Chad Kroeger (Nickelback) and Rob Beckley (Pillar), but he doesn’t necessarily sound bad. “Purpose To Melody” is a gem amongst late album filler and is a nice blend of the heavy and the melodic, I would say take “My Hell” and combine it with “Regime Change”. The lead guitar line is purely catchy, Kevin’s screams sound great, and something about the tempo of the song is just pleasing to me.
The filler that plagued the previous release is inescapable here: there’s a lot of it. 5 out of 11 tracks are filler, mainly comprised of NFL-aimed anthems (“Game On”) bad attempts at aping old metal (“Dive”), or the classic Disciple ballad issue (“No End At All”). For those counting, that leaves us with five solid heavy tracks and one great ballad. Lyrically, the band has improved and regressed in the same step. They’ve gotten darker for sure (“Scars Remain” addresses the struggles of living for Christ but the comfort in Him bearing the same scars we do, “Love Hate” addresses the dualistic battles of both love and hate in our world today, “Regime Change” is a scathing commentary on dying to an old self and choosing rebirth) and it’s good to hear and ultimately just feels more suited for the band and genre, but they’ve also gotten cheesier. I understand that “Game On” is well-intentioned and speaks of supporting our troops overseas, but without consulting either the band themselves or an outside source, it just sounds like your typical walkout anthem and feels out of place, especially after the immersive, deeply personal title track. “After The World” speaks of God’s unconditional love for His children, but uses some pretty iffy cliches and thus partially fails to get its point across.
After this release, I can believe in Disciple, but only a little more. Yes, this is a better effort than the self-titled, but just barely. If it weren’t for the lyrical/musical improvements and the ballad improvement found in “After The World” (yes, lyrics are cheesy, but it slays all of
Disciple), this would be getting a lower ranking, because the majority just barely holds its head over the minority. The standouts are great, and if you want to get into Disciple start here, but this album isn’t near life-changing.
