By John Sturm
I’m going to be honest with you all from the start. I have a problem with the vocals on Scarecrown’s album No Time To Retreat. They just don’t work for me. I’m not sure why, perhaps it’s the bombastic delivery that seems at odds with the more meat and potatoes riffing. Perhaps it’s the note choice that feels more designed to hit as many as possible in as short a time as possible. Or perhaps it’s that my only previous experience of female singers in metal bands comes in the form of Tarrie B from Tura Satana which was much more along the lines of screaming than singing. It’s not that I have distaste for female singers; I checked through my eyeTunes and saw Sarah McLachlan, Diana Krall, Tori Amos, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Shirley Bassey so it’s not that. Something just doesn’t work here.
The two components of vocals and music are both individually excellent. ‘Welcome The Dragon’ features a riff as bouncy as Pantera’s ‘Walk’. ‘Last Piece of The Path’ has a nice little thrashy vibe going on coupled with the groove of Stuck Mojo and ‘Dirty Mouth’ swaggers like Keith Richards having violent coupling with Stevie Ray Vaughan... but heavier. The bass guitar sound on this album is particularly meaty and dirty. Vocally, Antonella Buosi displays both lower and upper range with impressive fervour. Alternatively soaring through the air and furrowing through the mud. Able to both deliver a line in the vein of Bruce Dickinson/James LaBrie and pepper the album with shades of Alice In Chain/Soundgarden-isms.
So why does it not work for me? Researching the band, the genre tag I kept coming across was “gothic metal”. Now I’ll be the first to say that I have no idea about music tags these days but gothic is not the word I would have used, musically Scarecrown share the same use of groove/swagger that Stuck Mojo used to have. Perhaps it’s the vocal style that earns them that tag. Precisely the one aspect of the band that I feel sits uncomfortably on the more “metal” tracks. When on ‘My Empty Lightness’, Antonella gets a chance to sing over a mid-paced guitar melody it works. Wonderfully so. But elsewhere it feels like Marmite and Nutella, like cake and sausage. On their own tasty morsels but, together, not to my taste.
This is a good band with a good sense of light and shade and there are enough riffs to make you bang your head and tap your foot. But, for me, the combination doesn't work. Then again you might be one of the folks that like that sweet and salted popcorn so you’ll probably like this. Check ‘em out and let me know what you think the in the comments below.
