Scars of Tomorrow - The Failure in Drowning Review
by billy d. gamble
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These days the metal youth have found gained their metal stripes from extremely melodic metal bands that are simply borderline emo. Orange County, California is home to a number of these bands such as Eighteen Visions, Atreyu, and Avenged Sevenfold. Scars of Tomorrow also hail from the Orange County Area and have fallen to the MTV2 crowd just as have their neighbors and predecessors.
The problem with bands in the hardcore genre is that they occasionally cross into the post-hardcore genre a.k.a. heavy emo. Scars of Tomorrow actually manage to use the line 'Choking on your words" in 3 separate tracks! Not only is this a mildly clichιd lyric heard from bands many times over, but it crosses over into emo territory disguised as hardcore tough guys with black bandanas. When Mike Milford sings on the album it closely resembles Still Remains, but when he decides to growl his vocals sound like something from newer Darkest Hour.
About halfway through the album there is a song called "The Wandering", which was vaguely surprising. The song is heavier than the first 5 songs and began a trend in the album that leads Scars of Tomorrow from a growly Atreyu to a cleaner Zao. Unfortunately "The Wandering" is one of the mentioned songs with the clichιd "Choking on your words". The album really picks up during "The Untold Truth" which has guitarists Joey Atkins and Kevin Fifield playing some almost vicious palm-muting tracks while drummer Justin Salinas performs some hard and fast double-bass kicking. The last track, "Your Hand This Vice," does ruin the heavy streak when it sounds like just about every other song on the album.
The album overall has a very Zao meets Atreyu feel with a slip of Still Remains dabbled over the soundscape. The 2007 modern "(post-)hardcore" sound screams throughout the album. The same words are more or less used on most of the songs and most of the songs sound very similar. The song structures are repetitive and standard rock songs with no soloing or anything very technical. The same Atreyu themes and verse can be found within' the album. The album artwork for example resembles Atreyu's last album cover.
1. Lost in the Moment
2. The Failure of Drowning
3. Broken Silence
4. The Unwinding
5. The Silence of Sorrow
6. The Wandering
7. Nashville
8. Relive the Curse
9. Face Plastered in Black
10. The Untold Truth
11. Your Hand This Vice
CD Info and Links
Scars of Tomorrow - The Failure in Drowning Label:Victory
Rating:2.5
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