Released: 2006
Double Dragon is a name I've been hearing a lot of recently and they are currently holed up at work on a debut album so now seems like the perfect time to take a look at the previous CD. Since this was released this band has played with Slayer, Mastodon and TOOL among a string of others and appeared at the Big Day Out so they're obviously impressing a lot of the right people. "Scars of Fire" shows some of the potential that Double Dragon possesses but falls short of being really spectacular.
Opening track "Dead But Still Killing" is an absolute corker, sporting one of those insanely catchy In Flames-like melodic thrash riffs that immediately gets feet tapping and heads banging. It's patently generic but a seriously good way to get things cracking. "Inflictor" strikes next, not quite as good as the opener but again with a nicely flowing if predictable riff pattern. A tasty lead break from twin guitars heads into what for the briefest of moments threatens to become a breakdown but thankfully only turns out to be a single chug before heading back into the main riff again.
The CD loses a bit of its lustre after this with the next couple of tracks not really varying the diet much apart from the odd pinched harmonic being dropped in. The real clincher here however is the clean vocal lines. Used sparingly over the first two tracks, after this they crop up rather more, and occasionally seem as if vocalist Lee Gardiner is just putting them in at random because they somehow seem to be needed. They come off sounding a bit weak most of the time too and bold as it may be to suggest this but to me the songs would actually be stronger without them, or at least with fewer of them. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the last track, "Skulls of Fallen Conquerors" which starts off with some real ass-kickery going on with criss-crossing riffage and big thundering drums and Gardiner sounding like some kind of anger-fuelled madman, only to have a clean section come in and rob it of some of the rage. It's a shame too because this track could easily have been the best one of the lot. They get plenty of bonus points however for completely avoiding the use of any chugga-chugga breakdown parts.
Double Dragon is certainly a band to watch and they can put all the pieces together but "Scars of Fire" is probably just a little too generic in many places and shows they still had some work to do in a few areas. I haven't heard any of their newer material but if they've tweaked things properly they could become a monster.
- Dead But Still Killing
- Inflictor
- Forever Sacred
- Valley of Broken Bones
- The Skulls of Fallen Conquerors
Rating: 67%
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