EP review: Scar My Eyes – This Machine…

Before I get started on This Machine…, a minor gripe point – if there are six tracks on your CD, and the extra one isn’t obviously a ‘hidden’ track long after the last listed tune, please please please list the track on the sleeve. Scar My Eyes have sent out a CD with six tracks but only five titles; a close listen makes it clear that the opening track is a form of intro, and that hence they decided not to name it… but that plays havoc when you’re trying to rip the tracks and tag them properly, y’know. If this sounds like the bitching of the privileged, well, maybe you’re right. Or maybe you don’t add more than an album or two a week to your hard drive. Maybe both.

Anyway, with that aside let’s take a listen to Scar My Eyes. The press release informs me they’re from “a place better known for its heroin habits than local music scene”, but tantalisingly neglects to mention the UK town which gets the dubious honour of that description; MySpace only pins them down to Hertfordshire and London, so the mystery of this smacked-out locale remains potent. Woking, maybe? This Machine… sounds rather like I’d expect a band from Woking to make. Dark, furious, brutal, bleak… much like the local architecture used to be, if my memory serves. There’s a track titled “Through the K-Hole”, too – so maybe they aren’t entirely unacquainted with their local chemistry aficionados. Who could blame them?

There’s a faint dry smell of the Arabian deserts wafting from that aforementioned intro, which gradually builds up into the fearsome metal juggernautery of “This Machine…” itself – at which point all bets are off. Scar My Eyes combine an old-school thrash aesthetic with modern metal and hardcore hooks, played fast and tight and savage; if they can actually live up to this quality in the live arena, they’ll do fine after some relentless touring around the country. There’s no shortage of straight-up metal acts in the UK at the moment, but most of the ones I hear lack the knack with groove that This Machine… relies on. It’s decent stuff.

The standout tracks for me are “This Machine…” and closer “Disposition”, both of which add some clean soaring vocal melodies to balance the throat-ripped roaring of main microphonist Nick Lewis. Both these tracks are described as featuring vocals from one Dan Weller, who appears to be the producer as well. From this I can draw one inescapable conclusion: Dan Weller needs to join Scar My Eyes on a permanent basis. Sure, the tracks sans Weller are decent steamhammer metalcore, but it’s that dual vocal combo – bringing to mind Fear Factory in their better moments – that boosts a decent band into a genuinely interesting one. Give it some thought, gents, and then get your arses out on the road. The kids are waiting for you.