Scar Symmetry
The Singularity (Phase I - Neohumanity)

The new Scar Symmetry isn’t just an ambitious sci-fi concept album – the first in a planned trilogy – it’s also the extreme metal equivalent of Voltron. Melodic death combines with progressive metal, fuses with classic 70s radio-rock, and then activates with a core of pure Transformers-soundtrack awesomeness.

Stan Bush and Vince DiCola: “Form feet and legs!”
KansasStyx, and Foreigner: “Form arms and body!”
Scar Symmetry: “And I’ll form the head!”

Yes, it is that badass. And being a sci-fi concept metal album, that naturally suggests lots of complex, swirling synths and electronic ambience along with pulse-rifle guitars and planet-cracking percussion, but The Singularity (Phase I – Neohumanity) is more than just Scar Symmetry’s version of Somewhere in Time. The band has always been a bit of a metal cyborg – steel skeleton outside, soft and squishy inside – and now that duality between heavy and hooky is more exhilarating than ever. There’s a confident embrace of clean vocals and gorgeous, sugary-sweet choruses on every track here – even more than on previous albums. It’s as if Per Nilsson built a portal into the writing room, punched straight into 1978, and blasted the band with a dose of AOR radiation.

This bold new sound launches with a grandiose 8-minute overture called “Neohuman,” which pulls crunchy melodic death, soaring clean choruses, and a debris cloud of pulsing electronics into its orbit before it goes supernova with a cosmic off-time prog odyssey. It’s unpredictable and inventive and was probably insanely complex to write and record, and yet it soars and shines like pure starlight. I can’t get enough of it.

The next three tracks are more streamlined starfighters, built for speed and armed with even catchier choruses. Good luck dodging the ear-candy asteroid of “Limits to Infinity,” it’s been stuck in my head for weeks. “Cryonic Harvest” and “Spiral Timeshift” each have a heavier dose of death vocals, but are also brightened by stunning melodies and progressive pyrotechnics. Then comes “Children of the Integrated Circuits,” an instrumental interlude that sounds like a Phantasy Star dungeon crawl, and another album standout called “Neuromancers,” with an arpeggiated opening that sounds like a 16-bit shmup boss battle set to metal. Album closer “Technocalyptic Cybergeddon” is aptly named, as it’s not just the fastest all-out assault, but also the most hybridized and keyboard-driven composition on the album.

What’s most amazing about The Singularity isn’t just its ultra-polished sound, or its complex compositions, or even those sugary, catchy, radio-rock choruses, but the fact that it’s the fastest 45 minutes I’ve heard all year. This album is so listenable it moves at lightspeed, and then it’s gone – or at least until Phase II makes skyfall, hopefully sometime in the not too-far future. I’m an absolute sucker for melody and this has all the overpowering force of Interstellar‘s black hole: in other words, prepare to lose hours of your life to The Singularity.

[Visit the band's website]
Written by Jordan Itkowitz
November 10th, 2014

Comments

  1. Commented by: Guilliame

    I like this review!


Leave a Reply

Privacy notice: When you submit a comment, your creditentials, message and IP address will be logged. A cookie will also be created on your browser with your chosen name and email, so that you do not need to type them again to post a new comment. All post and details will also go through an automatic spam check via Akismet's servers and need to be manually approved (so don't wonder about the delay). We purge our logs from your meta-data at frequent intervals.

  • Kaivs - After the Flesh
  • Witnesses - Joy
  • Mythbegotten - Tales from the Unseelie Court
  • Worm Shepherd - Hunger
  • Chained to the Dead - Only Hunger Remains EP
  • Entheos - An End to Everything EP
  • Trollwar - Tales From the Frozen Wastes EP
  • Gigan - Anomalous Abstractigate Infinitessimus
  • Whispering Void - At the Sound of the Heart
  • Human Harvest - Void of the Vile
  • Defeated Sanity - Chronicles of Lunacy
  • A Scar For the Wicked - Acolythus
  • Sentient Horror - In Service of the Dead
  • Earthburner - Permanent Dawn
  • Carnosus - Wormtales