SCAR SYMMETRY: Holographic Universe

Released: June 20, 2008

I really liked Scar Symmetry's previous effort Pitch Black Progress so I was eager to see what their new album would bring. The metal press had already started falling over themselves in their praise of this new melodic death metal masterpiece, and while they aren't always correct, rarely have they been so wrong.

"The perfect symbiosis of melodies and death metal," chirped one. "An explosion of huge melodies and even bigger riffs," cried another. Both of these rags shall remain nameless but both of them should know better. If these reviewers are writing what they really believe and not just pandering to the whims of their advertising editors, then metal is going to hell in a handbasket.

For a start, Holographic Universe isn't death metal. It's melodic metal with some death metal growls. And while the melodies ARE huge, the problem is that they are all the same one! Don't even start me on the riffs, most of which are shapeless and totally formulaic. Sometimes they're not even whole riffs, just big half-chuggy things that some deathcore band left laying around some place. I'm not kidding. After making one of the better melodeath albums of 2006, Scar Symmetry has completely dropped the ball and made one of the most disappointing releases of 2008.

"Morphogenesis" gets things underway OK, like every lead-off track should, but foreshadows what the rest of Holographic Universe is going to sound like. Just like Soilwork, Scar Symmetry saves all the melody for the choruses, and then lays them on with a trowel. Christian Älvestam has perhaps the most harmonious clean vocal style in Swedish metal. It's like honey. I kept thinking they'd brought in a boy band to do this choruses; so saccharine they are, it's almost sickening. But the worst part is that he recycles the same melody in every single song. It's like he doesn't know how to sing another way. To top it off, there just aren't any hooks. In fact, these songs are so not-catchy that by the time I'd heard the entire album I had to go back and listen to what the first few songs sounded like because I'd almost forgotten!

Unlike some albums, Holographic Universe didn't get any better the second time around. This made me even more disappointed. If there is one redeeming feature, however, it is that in a genre where lead guitar is fast disappearing, Jonas Kjellgren and Per Nilsson really cut loose with some classic metal soloing that goes far beyond the hackneyed collection of trills and sweeps that pose for guitar solos these days. Even so, this isn't much of a recommendation, because the success of an album rides with the strength of its songs, and the songs here are weak.

"Timewave Zero" is just a lame pop song with some heavy bits. Other songs completely misfire and I found still others simply annoying. The totally misnamed "Fear Catalyst" started out like it was going to rip my head off, but Ävestam started up with his boyband routine within seconds, ruining everything! "Prism and Gate" sounded like it was heading in some interesting industrial direction for about a heartbeat, but then -- you guessed it -- that same goddamn melody line appeared. After a brief moment when I thought Scar Symmetry was going to get interesting again, they went straight back to what they'd been doing for the previous 35 minutes. Even the solo was predictable.

The title track offered a slim ray of hope. The first three minutes of this is the best part of the whole album: the synths and guitars working in perfect unison to build a heavy, epic-sounding, almost grand atmosphere, a really powerful section like the build up to the greatest climactic battle scene ever filmed. If the whole thing had been like this, Holographic Universe would have not just been the album of the year, it would have been one of the best metal albums ever. But then at precisely the three-minute mark that same poppy vocal line comes back, as if someone decided that one-third of the way into a nine-minute track was simply long enough to wait. The cool bit returned for a while as Kjellgren and Nilsson unleashed some monster soloing, but then after that the whole song just runs completely out of steam, a complete waste of four and a half minutes. Indeed, "Holographic Universe" seems to epitomise the failings of the entire album: so much promise but too few ideas.

If I was enough of a fan of this band to be crushed, I would be pulverised. Because I'm not, I don't care that much. There's plenty of other bands around. But there is a bunch of people out there who actually think this is pretty good, and that makes me very afraid indeed.

1. Morphogenesis
2. Timewave Zero
3. Quantumleaper
4. Artificial Sun Projection
5. The Missing Coordinates
6. Ghost Prototype I (Measurement of Thought)
7. Fear Catalyst
8. Trapezoid
9. Prism and Gate
10. Holographic Universe
11. The Three-Dimensional Shadow
12. Ghost Prototype II (Deus ex Machina)

Rating: 42%