(Andy Synn finds a paradoxical abundance of weirdness and creativity in the new album from Scarcity)
Very occasionally someone will ask us why we don’t cover more of the bigger, more mainstream-friendly, names in Metal. And our response to this is generally two-fold.
Firstly, it’s not like those sorts of acts actually need our attention or our endorsement, since they already get more than enough of that from other, slightly less discriminatory, outlets.
Secondly… well, after a certain point they all just kind of sound the same (although you could also say that about the annual wave of OSDM revivalists?), so it just doesn’t really seem worth us expending time and effort to cover a bunch of bands – all following the same trends and writing to the same formula – who we don’t really like, just for the clicks.
That being said, there are times when a band steps up with a new twist on a classic recipe which seems so obviously destined for massive success and acclaim that we can’t help but be caught up in all the hype along with everyone else.
Scarcity, however, are not that band.
From the moment that “In The Basin of Alkaline Grief” squeals and squirms its way out of the speakers it becomes clear that the group haven’t abandoned their unorthodox and unconventional approach to this genre we broadly call “Metal”, spewing forth a scalding stream of abstract discordance and atonal anti-melody – overlain with an eerie ambient aurora and underpinned by a series of slippery, stream-of-consciousness percussive patterns – which holds nothing, and no genre, sacred.
The contrast with their first album (2022’s Aveilut) is also just as immediately apparent, with the band – now incorporating the talents of Tristan Kasten-Krause (bass), Dylan DiLella (guitar), and Lev Weinstein (drums) – exchanging the densely layered approach of their debut for a more stripped back and spontaneous sound which aims to capture the electric, and eccentric, energy of their collective performance in the studio.
Perhaps most interestingly, this subtle stylistic shift has also had the (probably unintended) consequence of making The Promise of Rain an oddly more “accessible” album – though that is, of course, very much a relative term – with songs (if that’s the right word) like the nerve-jangling discordant sludgery (“Disco-Sludge”?) of “Undertow” and the darkly hypnotic (and unexpectedly melodic) “Venom & Cadmium” flirting with the sort of infectious ugliness and cruel catharsis reminiscent of the likes of Lord Mantis and Inter Arma.
That’s not to say that The Promise of Rain isn’t still a purposefully demanding and wilfully difficult listen at times – the early double-header of “Scorched Vision” and “Subduction” (with the latter serving as an extended, doom-laden epitaph for the former which practically requires the two to be listened to as a single, epic piece) in particular will likely strain the patience and tolerance of many listeners with its acid-trip arrangement of repetitive disharmonic leads and spasming spurts of off-kilter drum-work – but there’s always a method to the madness (and even, during the climactic title-track, a strange sense of organic, albeit not entirely human, groove) even if it’s not always obvious at first.
Let’s face it – as much as folks like to argue that the Metal scene needs the so-called “gateway” bands to attract new fans and keep the genre going commercially, it also needs bands like Scarcity to keep pushing the creative envelope.
Sure, not everything they do here necessarily “works” – perhaps it’s not even designed to, at least not in the normal sense of how we’d usually judge such things – but it’s albums like this which help open our eyes and ears (or, at least, the eyes and ears of a select few who operate on the right wavelength) to the more unusual and out-of-the-box possibilities afforded by pursuing a more extreme path, unencumbered by commercial concerns or financial inducements, which will in turn inspire others to keep pushing things forwards, adapting and evolving as they go.
And it’s that sort of evolution which is just as vital, if not even more so, to keep the scene alive deep down in the depths where the roots of creativity thrive.