Then when I had heard of Scorpion
Child, I was officially convinced that Monster
Truck would not be carrying the torch alone. I’m not sure where they came
from, other than the fact that they hail from Texas, they just kind of appeared
out of nowhere. Someone, at Nuclear
Blast Records, I don’t know who, found them and signed them and then shoved
rockets up their asses and sent them on to none other than the Rockstar Mayhem Festival tour this
summer, giving them obvious and much deserved exposure continent-wide. All of
this happening before they even released their first album too.
Well, on June 25, their self titled debut album was
officially released, in rather healthy quantities across North America (and
hopefully outside the continent as well, but I’m not quite sure). Having picked
up the album, I heard instantly the intelligence in the music they were making;
the difference in hard rock styles, not just sounding like another coming of a
band like Led Zeppelin like SO many
bands try to be. Though it does have its Zeppelin moments, it has its Black Sabbath moments as well as its
southern rock influenced moments, and the list goes on. Lead vocalist Aryn Jonathan Black has an uncannily
similar voice to Dave King of Fastway. For those who haven’t heard of
Fastway, they were pretty similar in
style and acclaimed enough at their time for doing almost exactly what Scorpion Child are doing.
The album starts right off with its blues roots. Kings Highway is a slow groovy song
that moves you all the way through. It is a bit riff heavy, like a classic rock
song. The second track, Polygon of Eyes
turns things up a number of notches. This high speed rocker shows some
(emphasis on SOME) thrash influences.
The Secret
Spot continues to slightly change the band’s sound. This song
retains a groove similar to Kings
Highway, but is far heavier. So far the band has shown that they definitely
know how to hook a listener. Salvation
Slave slows things back down to Kings
Highway’s groove, but this song sounds more like a song you can ride down
an open road with in your car; more so than any other song on the album.
I enjoy that the band included a ballad. I like that they don’t
have too much pride as to neglect such emotions that it takes to write a song
like Antioch. I also like how this
song, specifically, just keeps getting more and more intense as it goes on. It
is also placed at a point in the album that is not too late, and not too early.
By this point, you’d know the bands sound well enough to know they can release a
slow song such as this one, but there are enough songs that come after it to
reinstate the hard rock style of the band in to the minds of its listeners.
In The Arms
Of Ecstasy is, what I believe to be the most modern sounding song on
the album. What I mean by this is that it doesn’t necessarily sound like any
modern rock songs, but with the exception on the guitar tones, the song doesn’t
sound like it could have fit in to the classic rock era of music similar to how
their other songs sound. That’s an opinion of course, I’m sure many people out
there can point out similarities to 70’s artists, as can I, but not as much as
other songs on the album.
Paradigm is one
last fast paced no prisoner’s rock song. It’s probably even the fastest song on
the album. It sets things up well for the albums final track, Red Blood (The River Flows). This song
is a well chosen closing track for the album because it is musically superior
to pretty much the rest of the album. It starts off acoustically, sounding like
a song that could fit in to any musical era going back to Joni Mitchell’s innovative early days. The song eventually breaks
in to a heartfelt rock song, not too fast, perhaps a tad too slow, but still to
call it enjoyable would be far too much of an understatement. The song ends
with a pretty badass solo and then is followed by about six minutes of sound effects
of crickets, creating an illusion of whatever the listener can imagine. I
personally think of a vacant desert road.
Though I regard this band as an American Monster Truck, the two bands actually have little in common in
terms of sound. If you were to ask me, I’d say there is much more of a classic
rock sound in Scorpion Child’s
sound. They both, however, have the same goal. They are not afraid of wearing
their influence on their sleeve of a time where they believe music was at its
best, but at the same time they know how to make it appealing to modern rock
listeners. As opposed to just being a Led
Zeppelin spin-off; trying to make music they believe Zeppelin would still be
making if they made music today, Scorpion
Child write music for themselves and sound like they’re more than comfortable
doing it. My friend Ray Van Horn Jr.
at Blabbermouth states that this
album is hard to categorize. That would be the case for anyone over thinking it.
Really this album is a hard rock album, and someday soon Scorpion Child’s name will be mentioned in the same sentences as
the best modern and classic hard rock artists in the music business.
ALBUM HIGHLIGHT
“Polygon of Eyes” – It’s hard to think
of a reason why this song is NOT the highlight of the album. It captures its
listener instantly with its fast and heavy intro, showing how the band can be
considered a heavy metal band, in a sense, but then it slows down to a slow
groove in its chorus to glue up the song to being more than just a fast paced
thrashy song. It has one of the best guitar solos; it has vocal harmonies that
match the best of the rest of the album, and when it ends, it feels like it
just ends too soon.
FINAL RATING
8.5 (Out of 10)
Track List:
1.
|
King’s Highway
|
4:26
|
2.
|
Polygon of Eyes
|
4:34
|
3.
|
The Secret Spot
|
4:30
|
4.
|
Salvation Slave
|
5:15
|
5.
|
Liquor
|
4:35
|
6.
|
Antioch
|
5:30
|
7.
|
In The Arms of Ecstasy
|
4:23
|
8.
|
Paradigm
|
3:51
|
9.
|
Red Blood (The River Flows)
|
13:43
|
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