It’s amazing how the definitions of musical genres shift over time; when I first started listening to metal in the very early nineties, you’d have been laughed out of the black T-shirt gang for calling a band like Scar Symmetry “death metal”. But perceptions broaden in response to diversity, and Scar Symmetry’s third album Holographic Universe takes the “Gothenburg sound” of melodic death metal to what may turn out to be its peak of quality.
For the uninitiated, the most important word in “melodic death metal” is melodic, and the least important is death. Scar Symmetry’s material features deathly growls and bellows over super-tight riffing juxtaposed against lush polished choruses that pass more than a nod to eighties prog-rock; it’s another deployment of the two-disparate-sounds gambit, but Holographic Universe does a fantastic job of it, with hardly a single song sounding like a cut-and-shut. There is a notable absence of harsh scraping guitars and church-burning bollocks; this is a good thing from where I’m sitting.
Holographic Universe benefits hugely from a beautiful production job, with every little detail clear and sharp, the full spectrum of sound filled out and pulsing with life. The rhythm section thumps thick and heavy at the bottom end, the guitars sound full and rich, and the solos and clean-voice chorus vocals soar effortlessly over the top. Scar Symmetry solos aren’t gratuitous fretwank, either. Oh, sure – they’re ostentatious and very much front-and-centre (this is metal, after all), but they fit snugly into the songs without straining their waistlines.
The progressive attitude manifests itself in the lyrical theme of Holographic Universe, too, as the title should suggest. The song titles will clue you in further – there’s no genuflecting to non-existent demons here, but there’s “Artificial Sun Projection”, “Timewave Zero” and “The Three-Dimensional Shadow”. I’m not sure exactly what Scar Symmetry are trying to say, but it’s good to hear heavy bands thinking bigger than scratching bad words on the back of the Sunday School pews.
It wouldn’t surprise me to find that was quite deliberate on Scar Symmetry’s part, either – Holographic Universe sounds like a mature attempt to bring melodic death to mainstream audiences without diluting it too far. The balance is precise, the contrast sharp – the pure rock pop of the choruses, despite being propped up by heavy kick-drum bludgeon and drop-tuned chords, wouldn’t sound out of place on daytime radio, while the fearsome growly stuff has all the beef and aggression you could ask for, steady mid-range pacing with intricate rhythms … and those solos, of course.
Sure, the choruses are a trifle cheesy, but I’ll bet they make for great drunken sing-alongs. Scar Symmetry have that elusive credibility that seems to elude the copyists – by comparison, Bullet For My Valentine sound like Busted, not because they don’t make music as heavy as Holographic Universe, but because they can’t do it without it sounding forced. Scar Symmetry stand poised on the line between accessible rock and truly heavy music, and it looks like staying their turf for some time to come.
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Tags: Holographic Universe, melodic death, metal, Scar Symmetry, thrash
