Review: Scarscab, Soulblood (2007)

Would you expect to find Louis Armstrong on a German metal record? No? Well, you might be right; there is no obvious reason to. The more it struck me, when I heard Louis Armstrong’s famous line And I said to myself / What a wonderful world being sung on Scarscab’s album Soulblood. To be more precise, it is used in the record’s last song Behold Beware. Some might say this is blasphemy. I would agree, if Armstrong’s words would be used in a bad piece of music. However, Behold Beware is one of the best metal songs I’ve heard in a long time, leading me to one deeper insight: this is not blasphemy, this carefully crafted and yes, catchy, metal from Germany.

The same holds true for the rest of the record, even though Behold Beware remains the strongest song. Take, for instance, the beginning. The opening track, named after the album, is merely a prelude, emphasising the band’s taste for rhythmic and melodic arrangements – the first moment of good songwriting. But it’s clearly the second song, which shows that the band has more to offer: Human Havoc has everything a metal fan might ask for: speed, brutality, melody. Wow. I simply can’t find a real weak spot on that record. Quite the reverse. For someone like me, who is not a regular metal consumer, this record is a revelation and brings back my taste for music with heavy guitars.

Admittedly, one cannot deny Scarscab’s resemblance to bands such as Machine Head or Fear Factory. In fact, the band’s music is based on the same principle of speedy double-bass metal blended with clear, melodic singing. However, as mentioned above, Scarscab is not a rip-off. Rather, the band was able to create their own sound and style, which sometimes even leads to Metallica-resembling ballads such as All That Lies, which could easily receive some airplay on MTV. What these guys need now is a proper record deal!!