Scarlet Paradigm You Don’t Need This... Review by Gary Hill
I’m not sure about the wisdom of titling your EP “You Don’t Need This”. Of course, the fact that these guys have made it available for download via a “pay what you like” approach is quite cool. The music here is definitely metal, but it doesn’t seem restricted by any one sub-genre. It’s intriguing stuff that works through a lot of territory inside of the heavy metal title.
This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2010 Volume 3 at lulu.com/strangesound.
Track by Track Review
Vortex
They start this a bit like old school thrash, but as the vocals enter it turns more toward prog metal with some modern metal (and almost a little emo) in the mix. There’s a cool oddly timed section later and an interesting break down and rise back up. At times this reminds me a little of early Rush (but with a much more modern metal element). They even take it out into space for a short time.
Insecticide The tentative intro on this one seems to combine hard edged alternative rock with more progressive metal. They fire out into some more mainstream, thrashy metal, but the hardcore meets prog metal vocals (with even a little hint of Spanish music) are an interesting touch. As this continues I can hear some ‘60’s psychedelia built into it. They take us through a number of intriguing changes. This is a rather odd song, but it’s also very cool. This is extremely dynamic, really.
Quintus In a lot of ways, this is the closest to modern metal on the disc. It definitely incorporates a lot of different sounds and styles, though. It gets pretty angry at points and I’m sure that would send a lot of the fans of more melodic music screaming with their hands over their ears. Still, this track makes the best use of the differences between mellower and harder edged of anything on the set. It’s also got some of the most proggy stuff here in terms of a cool, psychedelically tinged, multilayered instrumental section late.
Demonize Here’s another slab of the type of music these guys have given us throughout. This one is perhaps less modern metal than anything else on show. Other than the introduction this is more of a straight line metal sound. There is a killer psychedelically tinged space rock meets metal jam mid-track, though.
