ALBUM REVIEW: Scar Echoes – Dysgnostic
To many checking out the first DYSGNOSTIC album, Scar Echoes, you’d be mistaken for assuming this is an especially impressive debut from a new act. In fact, the band that is now DYSGNOSTIC have been creating music together since 2008, under the moniker DEFILEMENTORY. Back in their early days, the Roskilde-based trio were more known for producing incredibly solid brutal death metal, with the band’s last release, and first album, The Dismal Ascension being a strong effort. In the intervening eight years, it seems the band’s sound and songwriting style has shifted along with their name, and the first record in this new, dramatically different style is easily one of the best death metal albums of the year.
Dysgnostic, with its vast, droning guitars, percussive drums and sludgy basslines, provides an exceptionally dark and foreboding start to the record. The slower pace accentuates the eerie quality of the music, and the thick, throaty gutturals that accompany it only add to the overall effect, making the listener uneasy right off the bat. Silvery Tongues proves to be a far more speed-driven and chaotic affair, with blistering drums, bass and guitars being punctuated by lighter but nonetheless jarring guitar lines and monstrous vocals. It’s got a powerful, rhythmic undercurrent, with lots of great freneticism peppered throughout to make it utterly unpredictable.
Beneath Abyssal Plains takes the dissonance that has underpinned the first two tracks and pushes it to a new level, with the hazier tone on the guitars lending a hypnotic edge to proceedings at points. For the most part though, this represents the rabid, pummelling assault that preceded it, with a denser sound from the drums, bass and vocals framing the more acerbic riffs perfectly. Oceans Of Grey, a much shorter effort, packs a serious punch regardless, due in no small part to its belligerent pace and aggression, along with the bleak, discordant lead guitars which inject an ethereal feel into the music, turning what is already a brilliantly bestial piece of death metal into a much more atmospheric and beguiling song that draws the listener in extremely well.
Nothing’s Embrace, with its cleaner tones and slow-burning songwriting, morphs into a monolithic and grand sounding slab of death metal, but with the ever-present caustic flourishes and disjointed hooks all coalescing into a cacophonous blend of noxious, borderline nauseating, musicianship and visceral vocals that sound more layered than the previous four offerings, providing a level of musical depth that makes this track stand out for all the right reasons. Scion Of Absence uses thunderous drums and off-kilter guitars to build a palpable aura for what’s to come, before lurching quite abruptly into a far more tight and technical sound that showcases a leaner, more focused take on the bellicose and unhinged style that the band have embraced up until this point. It throws a little melodicism into the mix for good measure, and it’s a subtle change that pays dividends.
Eternal Recurrence explores the same marriage between the atonal and the catchy as the previous track, with the music leaning decidedly towards the dissonant side of the band’s sound, and again its works well, bringing back the sinister and hypnotic components that appeared on the opener, but applied to a far longer piece of music. Darkest Muse takes a much more experimental approach, with massive, rumbling basslines and primal, percussive drums giving this particular track a cavernous sound, with the guitars and vocals initially taking a back seat before gradually creeping to the fore as the song progresses. When the guitars do eventually make their presence felt, shifting from the airier sound that features early on into slicker, more polished hooks that soar above the weighty undercurrent of the track, they provide a fantastic, climactic flourish that brings this album to an epic and memorable conclusion.
Giving Scar Echoes even a cursory listen makes it clear that the three men behind the music have an intense musical chemistry with each other that not many bands are able to achieve, even musicians who have been working on music together for almost 15 years as these three have. As a result, this is easily one of 2022’s more impressive and adventurous death metal records, and it sets a new benchmark for albums by bands that play in a similarly dissonant death metal style. Furthermore, DYSGNOSTIC have firmly established themselves as a creative force to be reckoned with in death metal, laying strong foundations for what is sure to be equally magnificent music in the future.
Rating: 9/10
Scar Echoes is out now via Transcending Obscurity Records.
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