ALBUM REVIEW: Endlessly – Scaler
Bristolians SCALER have made a big impact in a short time with a sound that continuously subverts expectations. The four-piece (complemented by visual artist Jason Baker) sit firmly within the experimental electronic space, with past releases dabbling in club (such as on their 2023 double A-side with Daniel Avery), drum and bass and detuned industrial metal guitar. It’s been a busy few years with that aforementioned release coming off the heels of a name change, an acclaimed and challenging debut album, and a Wednesday headliner appearance at ArcTanGent Festival in 2023. Their sophomore effort, Endlessly, aims to sustain that momentum and creative intensity.
Endlessly is recognisably a SCALER album, filled with dark electronic sounds drawing on EDM and industrial palettes. It opens predictably enough with the disorienting quiet when it speaks – two minutes of sinister synth scrapes and surges, reminiscent of latter-day 65daysofstatic at their most sinister. But then there’s an immediate left turn with single Salt, the first of five tracks across the album that foregrounds a guest vocalist. Salt is more synthpop than electronica; a tightly coiled song of incremental intensity builds, a delightful mix of programmed and natural drums alongside percussive synths. AKIKO HARUNA features on vocals here, her gliding vocals providing a coherence for the band’s creatively chaotic instrumentals.
From here on out, Endlessly mostly alternates between hits of experimental instrumentals and conventionally structured vocal-led tracks. The vocal-led songs are pleasingly diverse, adapting well to the vocal styles, and only get better as the album progresses. Mirage is a slower, languid affair, the voice of ART SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND giving a throwback trip-hop vibe and featuring a bona fide chorus for SCALER to return to. Third single Evolve goes a step further; its sparse guitar line and dry drums, alongside the lower-register vocals from TLYA X AN, break into a major-key inflected chorus earworm that could almost be out of the early PVRIS playbook, if not for all the re-amped modular synths playing in the background. It’s a remarkably confident piece, as unexpected as it is delightful.
The more traditional SCALER fare sits between these songs – instrumentals filled with heavy bass, electronic drums, loops and big tonal shifts. Early single Broken Entry is a coil of tension: all squidgy synths, ominous swoops and relentless percussive beats. It wouldn’t be out of place in a mid-2000s sci-fi first-person shooter. Amidst all the synthetic palettes are Nick Berthoud‘s distorted guitar lines, crashing through in a late headbanging breakdown of detuned bends, the sound of a chase through a cyberpunk rave.
Even on the more free-form instrumentals, SCALER swerve the temptation to indulge in longer track lengths, making sure to hit premises, builds and pay-offs in tight sub-five-minute runtimes. (yearn) holds a through-line of a simple bass melody augmented by busy break-beats played out at frenetic speed. Cold Storage is, well, colder in its bass frequencies, leaning on distorted guitar surges and mismatched time signatures of its panicky percussive synths. Endlessly is full of moments of such subtle craft, never falling into a typical formula and always finding a creative way to reinvent its sonic palette.
The contrast between those instrumentals and the vocal-led tracks is stark. A less confident band may have split the album into two halves and grouped like-for-like; it’s to their credit that SCALER have taken the blended approach and made the transitions seamless. At times, it feels like Endlessly is continually switching between gears; partly this is driven by the lack of tonal and structural cross-pollination between the two types of track.
The closing triptych of songs could not be more diverse. Sinking In features vocals from SHADOW STEVIE, cut up, reversed and compressed before finding another unexpectedly memorable chorus hook. It’s close in feel to the modern electronica of KELLY LEE OWENS (at her weirdest, of course). Salvation is the only male guest vocal spot, the spoken-word rap of ELDON set against pure heavy industrial beats and riffs. Metalheads will probably have the most fun here; on an album that seeks never to repeat itself, it’s the most distinctly different piece, leaning harder into the industrial metal palette than anything else. Ravine closes on an instrumental note of ambiguity, switching directions repeatedly before falling into yet another delightfully full bass sound.
For a sophomore effort, Endlessly is filled with a relentless confidence, rich in variety. Listeners will likely find themselves gravitating towards either the more accessible vocal tracks or the darker, heavier instrumental pieces, based on their existing preferences. But the deft handling of both sides, on what is their most complete and accessible work to date, will ensure that no one will find themselves impatient at any stage.
Rating: 8/10
Endlessly is set out now via Black Acre Records.
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