Review of Scars Of Tomorrow - Rope Tied To The Trigger

I was actually rather looking forward to this as their last album Design You Fate (on Thorp Records) ended with a bang, and now signed with Victory Records, Scars of Tomorrow primed to make Poison the Well type of impact on the metallic hardcore scene.

Unfortunately, Scars of Tomorrow don’t follow through, and Rope tied to the Trigger does nothing to lift the Orange County out of the swarming middle tier of metalcore acts trying to break free from the masses. Rope Tied to the Trigger is a decent album with everything you’d expect from this style of album; robust production, breakdowns galore, melodic emotive harmonies and heartfelt growled and clean vocals. The fact of the matter is though, with direct competition from comparable acts like (Bleeding Through, Remembering Never, Between the Buried and Me (essentially their thank you list in the inlay), or even newcomers My Bitter End, who all upped the ante with their latest albums, Scars of Tomorrow seem considerably flatter.

The songs on this album just seemed to lack the indefinable ability to move me, the possible culprit being the vocals of Mike Milford, whose monotone roar and ineffectual, almost spoken croon kills any of the emotion that might be carried by the dual riffs or telegraphed breakdowns. Secondly, I just wasn’t drawn in by the song writing. The slightly thrashier lean of many of the tunes just lacked the hooks or harmonies of their peers, and the Shadows Fall style of chunky riffage was forgetful. Even my normally favorite musical entity, breakdowns, as seen on tracks like “Reflections” and “From My Existence” just seemed lackluster. Many of the songs sound too similar, following the same pattern. From opener "To Watch You Burn”, to closer “In Dying Days” each song lacks the personality or immediate impact that you would expect. While certainly a “chuggier” band than their peers, they try to inject some seemingly piecemeal melody into their refrains, but they just don’t come across as that evocative, instead the harmonies are normally rudimentary and buried under the seemingly tired song structures. Only “Design Your Fate”, endeavors to inject some kind of real emotion into the guitars, but much like their last album that ended with “Another Day, Another Mark”-it's too little too late.

From someone who loves the genre and is generally absorbing everything of this style, I can safely say that Rope Tied to the Trigger simply left me cold, and Scars of Tomorrow missed on the chance to raise their stock with a competent but disappointing album that does nothing but keep them in the middle tier of a soon to be vapid metalcore scene. Only those easily satisfied with the number of breakdowns and predictable hardcore mannerisms will be entertained by this sadly underachieving album.

Release Details

Scars Of Tomorrow

Rope Tied To The Trigger

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