ALBUM REVIEW: In Darkness Alone – Scars Of The Flesh
Since their formation in 2015, San Antonio’s SCARS OF THE FLESH have managed to produce some extremely impressive work, but never seem to be able to achieve their full potential. Crafting an incredibly powerful and punchy brand of melodic death metal tinged with subtle progressive elements, the band’s first two records, 2017’s Harvest Of Souls and 2020’s Reaching Into The Void, showed plenty of promise, due in no small part due to the exceptionally talented musicianship on display on each. Their latest, third album In Darkness Alone is another great, if somewhat underwhelming record that once again sees the band’s skill on full display throughout their original compositions, with only the slightly muted approach of the cover tracks that conclude the record hampering the album’s overall impact.
Only I sets a bleak tone early on, with ponderous, melancholic guitars, caustic vocals and intricate drumming all giving this a dramatic sound and lean hooks. It blends melodic death metal with subtle blackened flourishes to make for a magnificent opener that grabs the listener’s attention right off the bat. The Hooded One, with its denser, galloping guitars and drums coupled with eclectic vocals, serves as a doom-laden piece of music with bursts of intensity and polished leads which punctuate the fierce undercurrent of the track to add some brilliant, imaginative moments. In Darkness Alone incorporates cleaner guitar tones and ethereal pianos into what is a far more rhythmic sound, adding a beguiling edge to this track. It’s a monolithic slab of death metal that is driven and made even more impressive by its vocals which make full use of Kobey Lange‘s incredible range, shifting from throaty gutturals to snarling black metal growls which make this song leave a deep impression.
Memory Unknown explores the experimental sound of the preceding track more effectively, with the pace slowing and the musicianship on display taking on a minimalist feel, with only the vocals providing any of the aggression of the previous three tracks. This is, in essence, a solid, sprawling piece of melodeath with palpable and effective hints of piano, spoken word and clean guitars that make it stand out for all the right reasons. Mors Aeterna closes out the first half of the record with a sombre, cinematic instrumental piece, built around melodic, reverb-drenched guitar work, which results in an ambient and engrossing song.
The latter half of the album exclusively contains covers, the first of which is of BEHEMOTH‘s Chant For Ezkaton. It’s a fairly faithful representation; it applies a slightly more imposing edge and wider vocal range and intersperses the denser moments with harsh, rasping passages, but other than that it doesn’t stray from the source material too much. The track that follows is an interesting take on a relatively obscure melodeath gem, DIMENSION ZERO‘s Silent Night Fever. Again, there’s little in the way of variation from the 2002 version, although the sharper, modern production does complement the biting approach of the guitars and drums, making it a great rendition of an impressive and sadly overlooked track and band.
Next comes Victorious March, a deep cut from AMON AMARTH‘s debut album. Again, the fact that this band have access to a higher production value than AMON AMARTH had in the late 90s does allow for the epic elements to come to the fore, and Lange possesses a wider, stronger range of vocals than Johann Hegg was able to achieve in his early career, two factors that help make this an impressive cover. The album closes with METALLICA‘s The God That Failed, the first non-death metal track covered, which makes it a better candidate for reinterpretation. The slow-burning, gargantuan style of the original is mostly mirrored, albeit with keyboard passages and a denser key of guitar and bass, and some brilliantly coarse and acidic vocals that completely change the complexion of the song, making it sound like a rhythmic, Goth-tinged CARCASS track that never was. It proves not only to be the very best of the album’s second half, but also a fantastic conclusion.
As good as this record is, it does feel as though this should really have been an EP as opposed to a full-length album. Although the original tracks which make up the album’s first half are incredibly impressive and make for a subtle but intriguing twist on the melodic death metal formula, it’s the albums second half that stops this from being a truly impressive record throughout. The first three covers, although performed well, feature a death metal band covering death metal songs, leaving little room for stylistic reimagining, with only the excellent rendition of The God That Failed doing what a cover should do: taking a song from a different style and morphing it into something new, flavoured by the band’s character. If the album had had two or three more new tracks, and kept the final track the same, it would have been very hard to find fault with anything on here.
Rating: 8/10
In Darkness Alone is out now via Bonespill Recordings.
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