Scythe - Subterranean Steel

Artist: Scythe

Album: Subterranean Steel

Label: Primitive Reaction

Genre: black/thrash metal

Release Date: September 11^th 2013

Scythe is the new band of Rick Scythe, who played from 1993 to 2007 in Usurper, a band that released 6 albums and toured 17 countries during their existence. With Scythe, formed in 2010 and hailing from Chicago, the music of Usurper is continued where they left off in 2007.

Scythe plays music that is deeply rooted in the classic 80s speed/thrash metal. Adding the black metal vocals and some heavy metal elements gives us a general mishmash of extreme metal. It's fast and furious, but I'm not too convinced if the black/death vocals work on the thrash rhythms.

The thrash elements on Subterranean Steel are definitely American in their feeling, and the extreme vocals seem to lean closer to a Scandinavian sound. At times, this combination gives a confused sound; and at other times this gives damn heavy fist-banging metal of epic levels. The problem with Subterranean Steel is just that Scythe seem to drift from this state of confused randomly mixed stuff to moments of utter brilliant heaviness.

With some more time, in which the members of Scythe can blend their craft together in a more coherent way, I'm sure that Scythe can become a band that leads the extreme metal underground. But as of now, Subterranean Steel is a release that leaves me with very mixed feelings. All the elements for greatness are there, but the pieces of the puzzle don't always fit together.

Buy Scythe – Subterranean Steel