Arts & Entertainment
 

Add another album to the tired old pile

Scars of Tomorrow doesn't add fresh sounds to death metal today with Victory release

by Ian McDonald
The Daily Cougar

Like any art form, music's greatest quality is quite possibly its ability to grow freely, ignoring limitations, thus always evolving. The rock community in particular is delightfully notorious for frequently destroying the status quo and dissolving all boundaries. Rules and guidelines are obstacles that are easily overcome with creativity in the world of rock 'n' roll. However, creativity is a resource that freshman death metal band Scars of Tomorrow seems to be in short supply of with its third album, Rope Tied to the Trigger.

Photo courtesy of Victory Records

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Fans of death metal are a rare breed indeed. The constant distortion and gruff vocals probably appeal to only a handful of today's rock fans. Considering that the fan base is such a small percentage of the whole, it is not surprising to find that the progression of death-metal bands, such as Scars of Tomorrow, has not been making headway in any particular direction over the past decade. Death metal looks to be starving for innovation but is instead feeding itself the same hackneyed formula and regurgitating inept hardcore bands that will surely be doomed to short life spans.

Most have undoubtedly never heard the angry, ranting lyrics of lead vocalist Mike Milford, but the band has made a significant dent on the surface of heavy metal. Rope is the band's third album and its first release on the significant Victory Records. Hailing originally from the Southern California, Scars' name quickly began appearing on stages all over popular tour routes soon after the band made a major roster change in 2003, leaving Milford and lead guitarist Carlos Garcia as the only originals in the five-member ensemble. It's just too bad originality could not have increased along with their growing popularity as servants of a weary rock class.

From beginning to end, Rope is relentless in preserving a virtually homogeneous pace. It is classic death metal at its most boring. Incessant drumbeats and repetitive guitar riffs plague nearly every song with almost no variation in format between tracks. For just a taste, "Abandonment," "As We Choke" and "Suffocating Words" (tracks 2, 3, and 4) start and end so similarly and with no breaks in resolution, a listener may find it difficult to decipher the point when one song has finished and another has begun. The overall static rhythm from song to song will surely have listeners thinking of mainstream radio as a viable alternative long before they are halfway into the album. 

As a matter of fact, the latter half of the album is the better half. In "Reflections" Milford balances his normal throat-scraping vocals with a sing-songy style, exposing a much needed but disregarded recipe that the rest of the album could have benefited from. Alas, in "Break The Fall" there are additions of very effective melodic sections, which are sadly short lived. However, it is refreshing to hear a foreign interjection to death metal performed by one of its own. Milford's fleeting P.O.D.-esque vocals are an excellent counterweight to the typical hellish screaming and grunting. So maybe all is not lost in the conformist musical style usually radiated by the death metal genre. The gears of innovation and originality must still be turning -- just very slowly.

Rope is death metal through and through, no doubt about it. That said, there is nothing heard here that can't be performed better by classic heavy-metal gods like Sepultura or White Zombie.

Scars of Tomorrow

Rope Tied to the Trigger

Victory Records

The verdict: Rope is the typical all-in-one death metal package, complete with a reluctance for change -- there's nothing particularly exciting in this one.

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