EPIC UP YOUR MORNING WITH SOME SCAR SYMMETRY
Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 1:00pm by Vince Neilstein
I’ve been living with the new Scar Symmetry album Dark Matter Dimensions for about two weeks now, trying to determine what I think of it. Finally the rest of you can hear it in full on the band’s MySpace page and just for yourselves. In no particular order, here are my thoughts on the album and the new singer(s) situation:
- The songwriting core of the band is definitely intact. They still bring the Death Jovi goods, unaffected by Christian Alvestam’s departure.
- Production-wise, the band have done a lot to make new clean vocalist Lars Palmqvist sound just like Alvestam. At times, I even forget Alvestam is gone. The verdict on whether he’s going to work or not will ultimately come down to how he sounds live, but from the footage I’ve seen so far I’m not convinced. On record, the guy certainly sounds good.
- New growl vocalist Roberth Karlsson is pretty much interchangeable with Alvestam.
- The album is front-loaded, with the first three songs being the best. The rest just kind of seem to blend together for me, but perhaps I just need more time to learn them.
So go on and stream the new album and tell us what you think. The album comes out officially on October 2nd in Europe and October 20th in the States… though you know how silly we think staggered release dates are in the Internet age.
-VN
I interviewed Jonas this week and he seemed dismissive of the last record which I LOVED.
I think over-producing the lead vocals, if it’s anything like the song that was released a while back to listen to, is a mistake. It doesn’t allow actual (or, even to my ears, close) replication of the way the original clean vocals sounded, and just comes off as way too over-worked – almost, actually, to the point of sounding completely computer-generated. Bad move there. Growl vocals were fine, but then, as long as you can do them, there’s not much dimension there (you have Opeth growls, Cannibal Corpse growls, and pig-squeal growls, that’s about it).
All three previous albums are some of my favorite melodeath prog…..somehow, I just don’t get the feeling this new album is going to rank up there.
The vocals themselves sound fine, but the actual melodies are much less catchy than Alestam’s. And when you’re a band whose only real talent is writing shamelessly catchy metal songs, then this presents a problem. As “anti-generic” as I may be, I actually enjoyed Holographic Universe (I can’t say the same about the other two albums), but his is an average-at-best album that’ll be forgotten quickly.
I found this last night. I thought the first three songs were great, as were the last four or so. The middle tracks were the weakest IMO, but being Scar Symmetry, were still very good, and I’m sure they’ll grow on me. Incidentally, this is how I felt about all three preceding SS albums. Epic openers, awesome endings, initially mushy middles in which I later found things to love, so at least they’re consistent.
The track A Parenthesis In Eternity confused me at first, because the first four notes made it sound like they’d decided to cover In Flames’ Come Clarity. Of course, then it went off into completely different territory and became one of the better tracks on the album.
I’ll certainly be picking this up, if only to read the lyrics insert, because the album concept is one I find interested, so no change there.
This one sounds a bit more like Pitch Black, but not quite as good. ‘Holographic’ was too poppy for me.
I like it. Haven’t enough time to fully digest, though.
Could someone explain the reason release dates are always different in the US and Europe? I don’t see the logic behind two different dates.
I never had a doubt about this band after the departure of Alvestam because Jonas and the guys are awesome musicians but I’m actually relieved now. The new album is great. Some of the songs are a bit more difficult to get acquainted with but, when you do so, they are all good songs (see Ascension Chamber or Radiant Strain). The only song that I consider below the others is “Mechanical Soul Cybernetics”: it is a different song, not in Scar Symmetry style… I don’t know, maybe with some more listenings it’ll become my fav one. My momentary opinion about this album is that it has part of the catchiness of the first two albums and part of the virtuosism of Holographic Universe (especially in the vocals because, I suppose, they tried to make songs suitable for the new vocalists): in conclusion, I love this new album!
I’m on my way through my first listen so far… I’m liking it. The loss of Christian Alvestam hasn’t affected them too much… it just remains to be seen if this album will grow on me like ‘Holographic Universe’ did.
I’m starting from the last track instead of the first… Total awesomeness!
That’s a good choice since the best track of HU was the last one. This time it isn’t though.
The best track of HU was EASILY the title track.
I’m gonna be lazy and just re-post my blabbermouth comment:
I was a “casual” Scar Symmetry fan over their last 3 albums. I REALLY REALLY liked a few songs like “Obscure Alliance” (my favorite), “Slaves To the Subliminal”, “Chaosweaver”, “Artificial Sun Projection” to name a few. I actually used to own all 3 of their albums, but after some time went by, I realized I was listening to the same 4 or 5 songs on each disc, so I made my own compilation cd with those songs, and sold my originals. I am currently listening to the new one, and am on track 9 right now. The first 4 tracks were great, didn’t like track 5 at all, 6 was decent, and 7 and 8 were really good. I am definitely happy with how the new vocalists have replaced Christian though. I was scared that when he quit, they wouldn’t be able to fill his shoes. The growls are great, and the clean singing is definitely less “sugary” and “poppy” than Christian was. It is shaping up to be a great album, probably OVERALL their best. They scaled back on the clean singing (just a little bit) and that made a big difference for me. I would dare say that this is their heaviest one yet. Will definitely be buying this one. Also, if you were a fan of Christian’s “death growls”, check out his new band “The Few Against Many”. Not a clean note to be heard, and just GREAT melodic death metal!!! The cd is out now. P.S. The new HYPOCRISY album has already leaked. Haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet.
I’m digging this, but it’s driving me insane who the clean vocalist reminds me of. It’s definitely a more main stream vocalist…. any help?
Into Eternity?
Ach, listening to it now that I’m back from work. Clean vocals fucking suck. They’re so obviously heavily computer-fucked, it’s just nasty.
I have to say, I think this album is kind of boring. No riffs are jumping out at me like they did when I streamed Holographic Universe, and while the shred is as great as ever, there’s a lot of shred out there. I disagree with your view on the vocalists; I think even two vocalists can’t match up with Alvestam. They should have waited longer before recording with the new members.
the growls are good, the cleans are too pop-ish for my liking
i will make a proper assessment when i see them opening for Devildriver and Behemoth with Arsis in november
I have always resented the “Death Jovi” label you guys use to describe these guys, as I’m not at all a fan of Bon Jovi and never saw the similarity. SS were never that cheesy. But with this new album, some of the clean vocals really do take on a Jovi-esque quality. And it sucks.
*Ugh* I’m not going to analyze this shit… This band bores me to tears. I can’t figure out whether it’s a good or bad thing that it only took 30 seconds to figure out.
The album has alot of kick ass parts, but being a die hard fan, I think they rushed in to release a follow-up to Holographic Universe, I understand that Christian left at the worst time, and that HU didnt get the proper promo cycle, but the album has alot of similarity’s to it’s predecessor that it’s making me wonder what will they be capable of on their next release (I’m betting it’ll be one of their strongest releases ever).
Oh yea and the over production on the clean vocals is a major buzz kill, Lars doenst sound like that live (or so I’ve heard)
All in all, the band is still taking all these little swedy douche bags to school on making extremely brutal yet addictively catchy melodeath music.
You got the album?
Fucking leak it for fuck´s sake, this myspace rip is killing the album for me ..
I’m listening for the first time now, and actually enjoying the non singing, non super deep growls, more a shriek vocals the most. Mechanical Soul Cybernetics is proving very different than the other stuff, but its sweet. The solo section is just the type of super technical – 56K modem sound they do so well.
I have had a soft spot for these guys so maybe I’m biased as fuck and would love any overproduced crap they put out. And maybe this is the afore mention crap. Everyone these days gets the superproduced treatment, and I for one think it has done wonders for metal music. To my ears it has never sounded so goooood. It does however mean more disappointment for live gigs. I did hear that they sucked live @ Bloodstock, weak vocals and no crowd engagement at all.
Verdict: Top notch melodic death metal.
oh I meant graspop, not bloodstock.
looks like I’ll be one of the few dissenters here. I’ve listened to this a few times over the last week or two (inb4 lolpirate) and I am not at all impressed. The songwriting is weak, the singing is pale compared to Christian, and the growls are a shadow of what Christian was capable of. The whole album lacks the punch of the previous ones.
I was driving down the road with my windows down blaring the new Scar Sym CD. I stopped at a light and started actually listening to the cd. I actually felt pretty gay listening to this garbage. Worst album theyve ever made.