We’re going to commit a cardinal sin of editorial review writing, and give away the verdict early. “The Sound of Scars,” the new album from Life of Agony and sequel to the all-time classic “River Runs Red” is a laudable achievement and an excellent listen, well worth the time of old fans, and a fantastic invitation to a genre left for dead by many new fans.
The textbook says not to do what we just did, but we’re about to go fairly deep into the reeds, and we needed the context of the verdict to provide some stable ground.
And now I’ll commit a second cardinal sin of reviewing, which is to inject myself into the proceedings.
I am having a hell of a time trying to assess this album properly. It’s not that I didn’t want a sequel to “River Runs Red,” it’s that I never expected one – and the fact that the band is expressly promoting the album as such makes it hard to know by what standard the album should be judged; is this a relic of the past and times gone by, or is this the beginning of a resurgence by one of the best innovators in the class?
Certainly, with all the band has been through, and with society’s increased focus on issues of mental health, a sequel was in the cards. If we can speak plainly, no one is better equipped in the metal community than Life of Agony to represent the sum total of those issues in a way that is both responsible and appropriate. As a quick aside and without going into the gory details, I’m glad they did – I’ve been presented with my own (comparatively minor) mental health issues over the past couple years, and the subject needs as much spotlight as it can get.
As we said at the top, I like this album. A lot. We’ll get into the minutiae in a minute, but the point that needs to be addressed is that there’s an inexorable phantasmagoria involved with this album. The close association to “River Runs Red” means that the memories of that record get mixed up in the interpretation of this one and it becomes a difficult mental exercise to separate the two. It’s like when you’re talking to your parents and your brain fills in the image of them from your childhood, but then you see a picture of them without context and realize that they have in fact gotten older.
Which only becomes complicated because of the following point – I like “The Sound of Scars” a lot, but I don’t entirely know why. The album hits all the right notes (pun intended,) and the songwriting strays back to the edgy and dangerous origin of the band, even more than their previous effort, “A Place Where There’s No More Pain.” For all that, there is a certain lack of musical innovation here; the album doesn’t feel very ‘new,’ and so I’m forced to wonder if I enjoy this record so much because of its own merits, or as an exercise in nostalgia. I have led myself to believe it’s the former, and I hope against hope I’m right, for as frequent visitors to this website will note, the latter would make me an unholy hypocrite.
As a second point, there will be some question as to whether this album impacts the legacy of “River Runs Red.” Part of the power and emotional effectiveness of that album was the no-nonsense recognition of the pain and struggle of the protagonist, ending with his lamentable suicide. If only someone had reached out to him, or if only he had known there were like-minded people out in his world….
To discover in the early going of this new effort that he survives doesn’t necessarily tarnish that impact, but it could alter its interpretation. This new album sees the same character grow and struggle and strive all over again, this time ending with a glimmer of hope that both appreciates and respects his troubled journey and gives him the chance to thrive as he goes forward. In the new millennium maybe that’s the message we most need to hear, and I hope that for fans this doesn’t diminish the weight of “River Runs Red,” but there will be an argument that it could (I can see it now: ‘well, the dude lives, so everything’s okay, right?’ Which is infantile in its simplicity and dismisses the point entirely,) and my fear is that the more stubborn among us will cling to what was rather than grasp what could be (which is, in itself, a theme of the album.) Remember, people; you probably know someone who is struggling. They may not show it, and they may not even really know it. But it’s serious. Check in on the people around you. It makes a difference.
Anyway, the record. What’s novel is that no one writes songs like this anymore, and so perhaps what’s ‘new’ is actually a continuation that has laid dormant for too long. Somewhere in winding path that’s become metal, we lost the ability to write sharp, spiky melodies and still have them be melodies. Life of Agony was among the best at this in the first place, and they don’t disappoint here, with the infectiously rhythmic “Scars” leading off the album.
There are many bands who would have attempted and failed to write “Black Heart,” the album’s second real cut, for they could not have balanced it so well on the precipice between heavy and anthemic. There are those uneducated or naïve metal fans who will smear “The Sound of Scars” for sitting in the middle of these two styles, but those fans are fools. Superior songwriting will carry the day in any genre, and metal is no exception. The vacillation between the heavy beat and the accenting guitar is a nuance that would be lost in many cases, but makes for great composition here.
While many will point to the shadow of “River Runs Red” that colors the songwriting of “The Sound of Scars,” there are many other bands that can be faintly heard here, through intention or accident. “Lay Down” bears the hallmarks of both Rage Against the Machine’s “Vietnow” and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” while still sounding intrinsically like an LoA original.
In a moment of levity, the first fourteen seconds of “Eliminate” are almost identical to the first fourteen seconds of The Bouncing Souls’ “Manthem,” to the point that I had to do a double check to make sure it wasn’t a cover I had missed. Seriously, pull up both songs and take a listen. (Unnecessary tangent – “Manthem” appears on TBS’ “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” which to me, is still the greatest pop punk album ever written, and it’s not close.)
Where we hit the meat of the album is in the middle, with “Empty Hole” and “My Way Out.” This is where “The Sound of Scars” shines brightest, as Life of Agony best displays their unique blend of rock, punk and metal to glorious consequence, bending all three genres into an inseparable weave that makes for two powerful songs paired with strong lyrical messages.
Two and a half years ago, I wrote about “A Place Where There’s No More Pain” and said this: “…the message remains the same as it was almost a quarter century ago. Life is hard, it can be unfair, mistakes are made, and somewhere, buried down at the bottom…[is] the knowledge that you’re not alone. It’s a message that has become Life of Agony’s stock in trade (and how could it not, just look at the band’s name,) and it is where their music is the most comfortable.”
That remains emphatically true for “The Sound of Scars,” and that’s what both continues to fuel the band and makes this an album not to be missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment