Scarlet – This Was Always Meant To Fail

I had been anticipating this album for a long time. The second I heard it; it had my interest off the first song. I’d heard a few of Scarlet’s songs in the past, so I found it bizarre and foreboding when it started off mellow and (one might say) emo-like. But I stuck it out through the three-minute intro and wasn’t very surprised when they broke into a face paced, heavy follow up to the first track. The album then kept the pace set by the second song, but unlike most metal-core bands, Scarlet has melodics unlike any that I’ve ever heard. It’s not often that you come across a band that has the talent to immediately change from a scream to harmonic vocals. At times the music can almost be too heavy for the melody though. The guitarist goes into some ear piercing riffs, and there are hardly any normal chords to be found. There aren’t any solos, but there’s plenty of technical breakdowns and continuously played high notes. The drummer fits in perfectly with the music too. He keeps a fast pace set with a double kick and by the smashing of the crash cymbal. Unfortunately, there isn’t very much audible noise coming from the bass. But the band sounds excellent and very different than most metal-core that’s been floating around of late. It occurred to me while I was reading the lyrics though, that they have the whole,” I’m a sad scene kid and my life isn’t going right for me,” feel to them. But that’s only a minor detail, since the words aren’t very clear in the songs.

I really recommend acquiring This Was Always Meant To Fall Apart. As far as most new releases go, this has been a favorite that I’ve heard in these short few months. I was surprised at the quality of the album considering that they’ve been robbed on tour twice since their last album. The fact that they didn’t break up after losing members and their equipment is admirable. So if you like the whole metal-core thing, but this time with melodics, I’d definitely get out to a CD store and get right to buying this.