In the interest of full
disclosure, I’m pretty much in the bag for Sweden’s
Scar Symmetry.
Having
caught the band on last year’s
Metal for the
Masses
tour, I was immediately taken with their ability to
combine sweet melody with brutal crunch. I dig this band for the same
reason I love
good Thai food: it’s
all about the contrasts. Hot and sour, salty and
sweet all combining in a resulting dish far greater than the
sum of its
parts. On their first two releases, Scar Symmetry [
Home,
MySpace] accomplished
the same
musically. Could they make it three straight?
Holographic Universe
rockets out of the gate with
“Morphogenesis”, continuing the band’s penchant
for ultra-catchy
openers. The band arms the track with two top notch solos and a chorus
destined to lodge
itself in many a cranium. It is followed by the
slower paced if equally catchy “Timewave Zero”, and the
raging intro of
“Quantumleaper”, perhaps the heaviest tribute to a
Scott Bakula vehicle
in music history.
Or not. Either way, this track is notable for its nimble solo and
King
Diamond-style
vocal line in the pre-
chorus, an extremely cooltouch echoed a few
songs hence in the schizophrenically driving, then mellow
then driving
again “Missing Coordinates.”
Next up, the crunching riffs that
lead into one of my faves,
“Artificial Sun Projection”, its heavy
initial chords detour around a
cheesy verse, before returning for a monster head-banging chorus.
“Ghost Prototype 1” features a series of skittering guitar lines that
converge at a stuttering
Meshuggah
breakdown midsong. Very cool.
I have mixed feelings about the
ambitious “Fear Catalyst”, which begins
with a roar and then
alternates lightweight vocal moments with a badass
solo, some more
Messuggah-esque riffing, and
an unmistakable nod to
Arch Enemy come chorus time. Parts of
the song are damn cool, but as a
whole the experiment never really gels.
The band clears the palate with
the straightforward rocking of
“Trapezoid”, and the futuristic
flavor of “Prism and the Gate”, setting
the stage for the sprawling 9 minute title track, which thunders
with
epic sci-prog grandeur.
Then comes “3 Dimensional
Shadow”, another track with a too sweet
pre-chorus, but subtly
shifting riffs and a brutal verse are the real
treat here. The cd closes out with the "Ghost Prototype 2",
which
alternates balladic sections with chunky shredding, another great
chorus, and a final soulful solo.
There’s a lot to like here, as
Scar
Symmetry’s strengths
are evident throughout. To whit,
Christian Alvestam’s amazingly varied
vocals, tremendous guitar work from Per Nilsson and Jonas
Kjellgren, a
load of great classic metal soloing, and the band’s excellent,
musically adventurous
songwriting. The band stretches and takes chances here,
and while they don’t always pan out, it’s
never a boring listen. Most
importantly,
SS are never at a loss for another cool riff, so
much so that
many are used once and discarded, left to be discovered by
the listener like a $20 on the sidewalk.
The only imperfections that mar
this gem are a series of pre-chorus
vocal melodies that stray
uncomfortably past sweet into “Feelin’ 7 Up”
commercial jingle territory, and a bit of clunky ESL
in drummer Henrik
Ohlsson's lyrics. Admittedly, I have no business acting as the world’s
grammar
monitor, but if you are going to sing in English, please have
someone proofread your work. Case
in point: “The Illusionist” from
2006’s
Pitch Black Progress is still my favorite
Scar
Symmetry
song ever, but I feel like a frigging idiot singing “Those who call me
avatar, knows not what
they’re looking for” out loud.
Seriously guys, next time, email me, I’ll be glad to look the lyrics
over for you.
So there you have it. On the whole,
Holographic Universe is
absolute ear candy for lovers of
supremely melodic death metal. It's not perfect, and
Scar Symmetry may
not appeal to those
who need their music all-brutal, all the time, but
I for one will be listening to this one all summer.
Check it out. 8/10
1. Morphogenesis (3:54)
2. Timewave Zero (5:13)
3. Quantumleaper (4:09)
4. Artificial Sun Projection (4:00)
5. The Missing Coordinates (4:37)
6. Ghost Prototype I (Measurement of Thought) (4:35)
7. Fear Catalyst (5:03)
8. Trapezoid (4:17)
9. Prism and Gate (3:46)
10. Holographic Universe (9:05)
11. The Three-Dimensional Shadow (3:57)
12. Ghost Prototype II (Deus Ex Machina) (6:03)