ALBUM REVIEW: In The End, Was It Worth It? – Scare
There are few bands that live up to their name, but for Quebec City-based metallic hardcore/sludge outfit SCARE, the name perfectly describes the primal, gut feeling that the listener gets when they listen to them. This is visceral, dark music that lends as much to the hardcore punk aesthetic and energy as it does the gloomy overtones and sensibilities of sludge metal. Since their inception, the band have made a name with their explosive, no-holes barred approach to songwriting and with their second full-length release In The End, Was It Worth It? the group have laid down thirteen more gloom-soaked violent outbursts for you to sink your collective teeth into.
From the opening track Nevermind If It All Explodes, I’ll Die Anyway the mission statement is made perfectly clear. This is angry, heavy and explosive music. Aggressive, harshly distorted vocals punch their way through the catchy, southern metal-inspired riffs and driving beats as the track covers miles of musical ground in the space of a minute and a half. PMA: Pessimistic Mental Attitude carries on the onslaught with a tremolo guitar line that sounds like it has been ripped straight out of a nineties black metal album. The whole song is chock-full of riffs that seem like they were designed to turn venues the world over to battlegrounds with vocalist Phillip Roy seeming to be the perfect person to conduct the proceedings.
The Black Painting slows things down to half time and gives the audience to really breathe in the colossal guitar tone that Gabrielle Noel Begin has dialed in. Just the slight change of pace makes this song sound huge and shows that just the slightest tweak to the formula can have a massive impact on the sound. SCARE also use the constant changes in tempo and beat to push the song into different directions to startling effect. By contrast of this, Thrash Melrose is a much more direct, no-nonsense song. With the driving riffs and rumbling bass line sounding akin to fellow countrymen and hardcore legends CANCER BATS, all giving Roy the perfect foundation to spit his bile-ridden, aggressive vocals over.
In the middle section of the album, we find the track Doomynation. A two-and-a-half-minute nod to all things doom metal (imagine that). The slow, meandering riffs give ample space for the huge, distorted guitars to wash over the listener and the infectious bass groove from Jon Fillion finds luring you in and forcing you to nod along unknowingly. After that brief intermission it’s back to bludgeoning the ear drums with the savage Midnight Ride. The lyrical subject on this track is as dark and poignant as they come, telling the story of how indigenous people were abandoned outside the city limits of Sakstaoon by police and left to freeze to death by the Police. With the bleak, morbid sentiment being perfectly portrayed by the harsh, jagged instrumental of the track.
Another highlight of the album comes in the form of Harakiri Ton Industrie. The song is a direct stab at the music industry and the underhanded practices that are known to take place. The gnarly, blues-ridden guitar riff is one of the best you are likely to hear this year and wouldn’t sound out of place on any of the classic CROWBAR or EYEHATEGOD albums and has the kind of swagger that is downright infectious. However, the song is quickly turned on its head when the pace picks up and becomes an absolute tour de force of riffs and pummeling percussion. this is one of those tracks that will turn a dancefloor to dust when it is dropped live. Moshers beware.
With a national tour of Canada already in the books and other than that SCARE remaining tight lipped about their future plans. We can all wait in hope that they will be bringing this album on a more far-reaching tour in the near future because these tracks need to be experienced in a live setting. However, with the way they churn out tracks of this magnitude with such ease, it wouldn’t be a surprise if they had a whole slew of other songs waiting in the chamber to unleash upon the world and hopefully that is the case. Because with In The End, Was It Worth It? is a perfect example of how to deliver straight forward, nasty music which both pushes the boundaries of experimentation, but stays true to the gameplan. Destroying everything in sight.
Rating: 8/10
In The End, Was It Worth It? is available now via self-release.
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