ALBUM REVIEW: Inertia – Scar Of The Sun

The world can be a cruel and merciless landscape, with Mother Nature commanding the very terrain that our footprints have riddled over centuries of misuse and abuse. The likelihood of Mother Nature’s wrath however is nowhere near as devastating or frequent than the Hell we unleash upon ourselves and our own kind, as Greek metallers SCAR OF THE SUN explore within their third full-length release, Inertia. 

The five-piece utilise scientific terminology within their lyrics embedded amongst a barrage of alternative metal musicianship to strip away the iron curtain and crush those rose-tinted glasses in their wake. With Inertia being mastered by Jens Bogren, the same hands who’d blessed bands such as OPETH and DIMMU BORGIR, the stakes are high. 

Ominous humming and delayed guitar tones ease the record in with Hydrogen, the advancing synths building with dizzying suspense. Title track Inertia offers a cascading dose of melodic alternative metal with Terry Nikas’ combined extreme metal vocals of Venom and an anthemic chorus endowed in clean and rough layered harmonies. Amidst the sideswiping guitar solo, the graphic lyrics are hard to ignore: “You came out clean, that’s what you think/We all know you got away with murder/Unlock and activate mass deception.” Swift strumming patterns and Thanos Pappas’ urgent drum beats assist in elevating the melodic riffs in I Am The Circle, the intensity rising with every gut-wrenching pound.

Quantum Leap Zero 1: Torque Control, the first chapter of an emotive trilogy that appears and dominates the record, is subtler in its musicality, with emphasis on the whispered bridge; “And as a spark appeared/Hint to a guiding light/The flood brought all you feared/ This is the start of an end that was so apparent.” Running up at five and a quarter minutes, the longest track on the album speaks ill of the evil that men do and the gullibility and naivety that blinds them. Catapulting straight into Quantum Leap Zero 2: Transition To Turbulence, speed and thrash meld together to create an unholy matrimony of metal, officiated by the vocal anger of soldiers at war: “Porcelain core, soon debris, trading our heroes for fragments of peace.” Transitioning into a river of alternative metal with a message of severity, “I’ll never seek what your greed amassed/I’ll be the one who escaped the slaughter/I’ll live the day that I will return the blast!” watches on as anger and resentment break and consume the human spirit. 

Guitarist Alexi Charalampous’ soft and clean intro on Oxygen dances with Greg Eleftheriou’s subtle guitar licks and Panagiotis Gatsopoulos’ elusive bass lines, with serene vocals invoking a fearful calmness that’s heightened by operatic female vocals a lá EVANESCENCE. At two and a half minutes, Oxygen swiftly leaves you feeling breathless. 

Delayed guitar notes solicit poignant emotions of sorrow, a devastating end to the emotive trilogy with Quantum Leap Zero 3: Thrust. The same notes joined by piano tones prick the ether beneath the hurried and urgent distorted guitar chords, as a narrative of soldier PTSD weaves itself into fruition: “Punish the nation! A coup in haven, The brotherhood of vermin/Heathens in the cradle of light.”

As SCAR OF THE SUN end Inertia with Anastasis, a track about resurrection and the loss of a loved one, the closing line “How could you leave me? How could you do this to me? Fuck death!” holds in it a sentiment with the heavy and brutal realisation of the finality of life on earth. 

Inertia embodies the balance of light and dark, the expert musicality breathing out a sigh of content whilst the lyrics seethe with the reality of life’s brutality, which SCAR OF THE SUN seem to pen with much deep set relatability and empathy within their bones. 

Rating: 7/10

Inertia is set for release on May 14th via Napalm Records.

Like SCAR OF THE SUN on Facebook.