Review Summary: A historic masterpiece and a milestone of Technical Death Metal. An outstanding example of what the genre should strive for.
Friday morning I always wash the dishes. Before I start, I look for the perfect album to listen to, something energizing, something truly great, some hard *** I can dance along to while scrubbing. And I f**king scrub man.
I started going through my usual favorite options - At the Gates, Death, Tool, Meshugga, etc.. I put on an album, listened to half a song, wasn’t feeling it, tried the next album, and again. I did this for several minutes that could have been better spent washing dishes while listening to the perfect album. Pissed off at wasting time, a voice in my head, snaky, but trustful, said, “You know you really want to listen to ‘Scepter of the Ancients’ again. Every riff that’s been playing in your head the past three months is from that album. There’s no use denying.”
I put on my noise cancelling Sonys and started playing Scepter. I started scrubbing the dishes and Psycroptic started scrubbing my eardrums with their brilliantly catchy and brutal riffs. Melodic though complex song structures. Intelligent, incredibly technical, and precise musicianship. What a joy!
This album is marvelous. It took me a long time to understand that. I have a friend whose musical taste I esteem highly. He nagged me for years to listen to Sceptre, but the vocals - ranging from deep belching growls to screeching highs (sometimes changing several times in the span of a verse) - were too much for my (then) untrained ears. But there was something interesting in the music, and so I kept trying. This album really deserves over a dozen listens in my opinion before it starts blasting you in the face - in the best way possible.
Comparing it to other tech-death giants - it is as enjoyable as Necrophagist’s Epitaph only without the solos - which evidently is one of a few small downsides. But the riffs are so technical and melodic that I barely felt the missing presence of solos.
Besides the phenomenal guitar work:
*The Vocals*
The vocals are brilliant. Matthew Chalk’s range is inhuman, and was one of the reasons why this album was so hard for me to get into. But once you’re used to all the strange and incredible sounds coming out of this guy’s throat, everything somehow falls into place.
*The Drums*
The drums are spectacular, and never disappoint in setting a brutal, technical, and intelligent rhythm. The accuracy, speed, and creativity of Dave Haley is superb.
*The Lyrics*
I find it impossible to understand the lyrics just by listening. Reading them as I played the songs, I found them interesting. To me, it is always satisfying to see that thought and emotion are poured into lyrics alongside the music - it proves a strive for artistic excellence.
Gory and existential are words that come to mind when thinking about the lyrical content. A downside for me was the overly extreme goriness in some of the songs (e.g. Cruelty Incarnate). But you know, it is death metal..
Rather than trying to be poetic, it feels as if “Chalky” takes the approach of - sing these lyrics along the music somehow. There aren’t many rhymes, and the lyrics are super hard to sing along to. But listen to how Chalky sings them, and well, you’ll be too stunned to want to think about it much more. It just works.
*Summary*
Other than SOTA, I’ve listened to “The Isle of Disenchantment” and “As the Kingdom Drowns” by Psycroptic. And while the debut (the former) is similar to this (being the only other album with “Chalky”), it is less technical and diverse. “As the Kingdom Drowns” is also fun, but “Scepter” is a true tech-death metal masterpiece.
