Album Review

Scar Symmetry - The Unseen EmpireScar Symmetry – The Unseen Empire

Scar Symmetry are one of the finest melodic death metal bands on the scene today! This new release brings their album count up to 5; the styles between each of the albums take not drastic changes but very slight changes with each which is normal as a band progresses and experiments with ways of writing. A massive line up change between “Holographic Universe” and “Dark Matter Dimensions” did occur with the long term vocalist leaving and them having to bring in 2 to replace him; this could have killed them if not thought about correctly but with this new release it’s clear that they have pulled it off.

“The Unseen Empire” just takes what they’ve done and with the added overlapping abilities of having 2 vocalists they really add some extra depth and texture in here; I feel certain elements of power metal with the new clean vocalist, mixed in amongst the crunch and melodic atmosphere produced with the guitar work. The first track “The Anomaly” is reminiscent of old school favourite “The illusionist” being very similar indeed, the clean vocals and the lyrics are just fantastic I think the new vocalist has really stepped up to the standard of the old vocalist and made his stamp on the sound.

The new vocals however are a lot more of the clean than screaming, for the fans of the more originally really heavy Scar Symmetry fans the tracks on the album for you are “Illuminoid Dream Sequence”, “Extinction Mantra” and “Seers of the Schaton”; I say these 3 for the music also because they do still have a fair bit of clean vocals in there but the way they drop with the screaming vocals over the top is something of sheer talent.

The way this album flows with its Sci-fi theme (Which is wonderful) makes it feel like an interstellar journey not even with the lyrics because it’s not mentioned in there but the feel and little keyboard lines gives it the feel. The first few songs are really heavy then and it journeys around the rest of the album till its conclusion. They need to think about their next release because they are at risk of going over things that they have done before and repeating previous efforts but this album is a terrific piece of work.

5/5

Review by James Webb

 Band Members

Roberth Karlsson
Lars Palmqvist
Per Nilsson
Jonas Kjellgren
Kenneth Seil
Henrik Ohlsson
 Track Listing
1. The Anomaly
2. Illuminoid Dream Sequence
3. Extintion Mantra
4. Seers of the Schaton
5. Domination Agenda
6. Astronomicon
7. Rise of the Reptilian Regime
8. The Draconian Arrival
9. Alpha and Omega
 Band Related Links
Scar Symmetry Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?