Scars Of Chaos
Humanitarian War Machine
7.7
Synopsis:
While none would argue that France has an elite, thriving black metal scene, very little of that metal is symphonic black metal, and other than say Anorexia Nervosa French black metal seems rooted in the more disturbing, psychotic side of things. Well, taking a nod from Anorexia Nervosa, Scars of Chaos, with thier second album, have delivered a damn solid, surprisingly seething take on the genre.
Reviews:
Where most symphonic black metal is either a bit sugary or a bit heavy on the gothic overtones, again like their afore mentioned country mates, Scars of Chaos actually deliver a rather vitriolic, nasty and fervent take on the genre. Like Dimmu Borgir with rabies, the band gloss their heavily blasting black metal with ample, but not overdone synths that are light on the theatrics and still heavy on the grandiosity.
Understated yet effective, the keyboards of Angelus are perfect ‘accoutrements’ to the far more blistering take on black metal. At times reaching Marduk/Dark Funeral levels of blazing intensity (“Funeral For a World”, “Darker Than Hell”, “Chaos By Nature”), Scars of Chaos still manage to be epic and atmospheric without being to glossy or watered down; the short of it is that this would be a solid black metal album without the synths.
Though the trappings of the genre are present at times (i.e. the atmospheric “Son Excellence De la Douleu”), they are generally washed away by the far more extreme blast beats and appropriate screams and growls of Evil Tongue, there are no ballads or slow tracks here. There is an interlude (“Intro to Darker than Hell”), but it’s a classically inspired build that leads into the deadly “Darker Than Hell”. There are no real standouts per say, as admittedly the tracks all run together a bit but the trio of the title track and “Chaos By Nature” and “A New Era of Darkness” was a pretty intense 17 minutes.
And that leads to my only little gripe; the songs are a bit long, all hovering around the 5-6 minute mark, and the intensity wears off a bit, in fact due to the rather merciless pace the album has, each of the tracks could have been about a minute shorter. Also, I see the band has got rid of the spikes and corpse paint for this album's press shots, and I sense a more industrial/cyber direction in the artwork and overall band mood that could translate musically on the next album. I hope not as there’s relatively few bands playing good symphonic, uncommercialized black metal (I’m looking at you Dimmu and Cradle) and with Anorexia Nervosa having some line-up issues, Scars of Chaos could elbow their way into the mix.
