Standing out from the crowd…
My ne-science concerning Austria’s melodic death metal outfit Scarecrow NWA is a little bit embarrassing. Why? Because they present their band under a stylistic umbrella I’d have loved to discover back in my early days as a metalhead, and their origins stem from a time when I’d barely even finished elementary school. I mean, this country isn’t that big, and it took me decades to even hear of this band? Dear me, can’t change the fact, I guess…so we are now going to spend some long-overdue time with their newest release, simply titled IX, which got its name from our beloved Nine Circles of Hell taken out of the famous Dante’s Inferno. Not exactly a concept that hasn’t been used many times before, but it suits this record’s aesthetic rather well.
First off – don’t expect much of a 90s/00s Gothenburg melodeath base. IX offers a palette of death and black metal riffs, trading blows with post-punk/early gothic rock arpeggios and heaps of highly melodic lead guitars and solos, so there are certainly twists and turns straight out of a modern progressive concept textbook to be ingested here. Indeed, Scarecrow NWA doesn’t like to dwell on a set of riffs for too long, so your ears should be ready for material that demands your full attention. I’d recommend the two tracks “Lust” and “Heresy” for representative starters if time is too short to explore this album’s genome in full.
IX is a pretty heavy affair with some bludgeoning riffs coming about, but the production doesn’t quite reflect this. The rhythm guitars aren’t all that distorted, these drums don’t quite peel your face off as their bottom-end isn’t highlighted as much as you’d expect, with the bass guitar also being audibly clean and non-obtrusive, despite some pretty mean lines laid down. These choices sound deliberate, though, because it makes the album stand out in a different way – infusing a 70s amplification aesthetic into a modern songwriting environment.
While the progressive tag fits Scarecrow NWA to some extent, they do know how not to fall into that common prog-trap of disregarding catchiness for forced complexity. Infectious rhythms and delicate guitar leads (lots of fine harmonies here!) are present throughout every composition, with the latter being their most prominent positive trait. I keep coming back to this because the soloing all but completely neglects extreme metal standards as it thrives on a melodic and playful arsenal more reminiscent of heavy and proggy thrash metal bands of the late 80s and early 90s, with only a dash of dissonance bleeding through this euphonious proposal.
Perhaps the vocals are most reminiscent of what is considered classic melodeath today, as their gruff delivery is an enjoyable slab of prominently harsh midrange screams with some forceful supplementary guttural growls. A couple of lesser clean-sung moments appear here and there, but they do feel a bit tacked on for the sake of variation; frankly, they just don’t work as well for this listener.
There are a few moments where the band feels slightly off in their syncopation, with the timing of each musician teetering on the verge of collective collapse, but every time this starts to seep into consciousness, the feeling fades again quickly – probably just a clever (and/or genuine) way to keep the human factor audible in a rather technical context. Ultimately, it’s not much of a distraction.
It’s a difficult task to recommend Scarecrow NWA to any specific crowd as their music can’t easily be pigeonholed into stiff categories. IX features a ton of elements that could be both appealing and appalling to extreme metal fans and bon vivantes of lighter dishes alike, so perhaps just diving into a track or two (as recommended earlier in this review) could do the trick. Though I gotta say – it did take a few spins to fully click with me…maybe just buying the album and thoroughly digesting it in a quiet hour or two is the better choice in the long term. I’m certainly aware of this band now – danke!
https://www.facebook.com/ScarecrowNWA
79/100
Total Score
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