Angry Metal Guy

Scar Symmetry – Dark Matter Dimensions
Rating: 4.5/5.0 – Excellent, but formulaic
Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | USA)
Website(s): scarsymmetry.com | myspace.com/scarsymmetry
Release Date(s): EU: 02.10.2009 | USA: 10.20.2009

I remember the first time I heard Scar Symmetry very clearly.  I was checking out some stuff on MySpace when I saw that they were going to be playing the House of Metal festival and I was blown away. Not blown away with how good they are, though talented one cannot deny they are, but how sickly sweet their melodic stuff is.  I sat their and listened to it with my mouth agape thinking “really?  Does this pass for death metal these days?  How are these guys not a Top 40 band?” The answer to that is actually quite obvious: instead of dropping the death metal vocals, these guys have blended death metal vocals in with what I think is probably the most pop sensible writing I’ve ever heard in a metal band.

I was unimpressed at the time, but upon receiving Dark Matter Dimensions my opinion has changed quite a bit. This could be for a couple of reasons, though. Shortly after Holographic Universe was released, the band kicked out its old vocalist (Christian Älvestam) due to personal conflicts and touring conflicts. In essence, however, they had wasted an entire touring cycle and, reading between the lines, it didn’t sound like the prettiest of internal conflicts. The decision to go with two vocalists seems to have been the right one, as the vocal approach on Dark Matter Dimensions is fantastic.  The growls are low and brutal and the clean vocals go between good, high clean vocals and sounding like Ville Laihiala (Sentenced, Poisonblack).

Musically Dark Matter Dimensions is fairly formulaic, while not being too formulaic to enjoy (see: Threat Signal and Killswitch Engage).  The tracks are heavy, fast and fairly technical sometimes, but launch into huge, catchy choruses with clean, beautiful vocals over them.  It’s not often that metal bands write poppy choruses like Scar Symmetry though.  These guys have a special talent for melody.  On the second time through this record I had already started singing along with the choruses as though I’d heard them a hundred times before, and its that catchiness and familiarity that make the band so accessible.

On the other hand, technical music geeks will still get a kick out of some of the tracks on this record.  ”Mechanical Soul Cybernetics,” for example, is a technical circus, showing off the highly skilled guitar work and writing talent and even bordering on tech death.  This band is a beast musically, and that comes through more on this record than it did on Holographic Universe.  The band’s growing edge was a question of whether or not they could produce metal that felt edgy and heavy, despite being poppy and having sweet hooks.  Dark Matter Dimensions definitely shows that Scar Symmetry was up to that challenge.

This Angry Metal Guy has been getting into technical, amelodic stuff a lot lately because of the fact that melodic death metal seems to be really hashed through and done.  Scar Symmetry shows that this isn’t the case.  Melodic death metal can be done well and originally: it just takes a novel approach and extreme skill to piece it together. Scar Symmetry has both and they have outdone themselves with Dark Matter Dimensions.

Threat Signal – Vigilance
Rating: 3.0/5.0 (Solid)
Label: Nuclear Blast (EU | USA)
Websites: myspace.com/threatsignal | threatsignal.com
Release Dates: USA: 9.8.2009 | EU: 11.9.2009

Three years after their initial release, after being a true Internet success story, Threat Signal is back with a new album called Vigilance.  I never got to review the first album, and I must admit that this style is a little bit too sugary sweet for my tastes, but I was pleasantly surprised with what I heard contained within the borders of Vigilance: a band comfortable in their own shell, producing music that skates the fine line between pop metal, metalcore and thrash.  This record is sure to bring delight to those among us who aren’t fans of the more heavy hitting, brutal or technical things that are flooding the market these days.

I think it’s safe to say that Threat Signal is a metalcore band, in the sense that they are modern metal with a vocalist that borders on hardcore vocals, uses intense groove metal and sounds a bit too much like In Flames for their own good.  However, what these guys have that a lot of metalcore bands lack is seriously good guitar players.  Sure, Petrucci isn’t the lead player in this band, but Threat Signal has consistently excellent leads and harmonies that, even to the skeptical listener, play well.  These melodic parts, combined with the tightness of the groove make Vigilance fun to listen to at first, but over time one picks up on the same kind of formula that is used by Killswitch Engage to build their songs.  Semi-tech guitar playing in the vein of 90s Swedish melodic death metal, followed by slowed down clean vocal choruses that are specifically built to stick in the listener’s brain.  All of this is smoothly pieced together into tight, fairly short songs and packcaged for the delight of kids with scene hair.

Of course, my biggest issue with this is that it’s too damn smooth and therefore over time the songs begin to blend together and lose form and originality.  The band is surely talented, but the material is too smooth, too formulaic and frankly too near to screamo and emocore for me to be able to deal with.  The clean vocals sound like they could’ve been on a Thrice or Coheed record and, while the screams are very good, they seem to take backseat to a lot of clean vocals.

There are some excellent moments contained within this CD, however.  It’s not a total waste of time, but it lacks that bit of originality that could really push this band somewhere else from where they sit.  In 2009 metalcore is old hat, no one is really picking this stuff up now that certain labels overloaded on it, and I suspect that it will have flagging sales as well.  Bands like Threat Signal who are truly talented, should definitely be thinking about progression.

A final note: as if to prove my point about originality, the next band on my iTunes playlist was one track that I got from a Roadrunner promo from Trivium.  The track sounds with clean vocals, and a riff that sounds just like Threat Signal.  I thought “Wow, yeah, I’d forgotten about this part.. his vocals sound great!”  So I went to check the name of the song, to find out that it was Trivium.  The fact that I can’t even tell these two bands apart when they sit side-by-side in my promo playlist should illustrate my point.  Vigilance is an excellent effort, no doubt about it, but it lacks that spark of originality and newness that is necessary to keep a band afloat.