Review: Scythelord – Earth Boiling Dystopia

Style: Thrash/Death Metal (harsh vocals)
Review by: Callum
Country: Sweden/US-FL
Release date: June 24, 2021

I may be showing my age, but previous to this exposure I didn’t know what the hell a Vinesauce was. The younger or otherwise more net-savvy among you may recognise the name Joel Johansson as an associate of the Youtube and Twitch streaming collective I now understand to be Vinesauce. Joel had released a trilogy of Skeleton Metal albums under his online alias, Vargskelethor, between 2014 and 2019. These were primarily composed of short, fairly crude, skeleton-themed metal comedy tracks. The recording and production quality was fairly rough, although Joel’s musical talent improved and his song writing grew noticeably more ambitious by the end of the trilogy. Despite being another death/thrash metal project, Scythelord, made up only of Joel and his US counterpart Frank Hernandez, is an entirely different and much more serious take on the genre. With their sophomore Earth Boiling Dystopia, the duo show an impressive amount of maturity, technicality, and variety through the combination of savage riffs, a stunning vocal performance and fresh song writing.

With the prior knowledge that this record was a blend of thrash and death metal, and judging by the futuristic, dystopian edge of the album title and artwork, I was anticipating a Vektor soundalike. There are clearly parallels in the way both groups approach philosophical and astronomical themes, as well as in their blisteringly fast and imaginative thrash riff construction. Scythelord are, however, not quite as fast, nor as surgically precise. This is in great measure due to the heavier emphasis on death metal characteristics like the guitars delving much further into lower registers, growled vocals being much beefier, and dynamic tempos. The guitar solos are also far more melodic and emotive rather than clinical and ‘shreddy’ as found in a lot of traditional thrash.

The album is structured in an interesting way, where the first half is thick with fast, aggressive, and mostly unrelenting tracks like “Wireframe”, where one may be lulled into thinking this may yet be merely modern thrash. The quick, disorientating rests and fancy fills disperse this feeling fairly quickly, however. “Equanimity” is another energetic track that features a well crafted guitar riff that rises and falls in consonance with beautiful, attack-heavy bass tones. The solo in this track also faintly reprises this main riff, which shows a great attention to detail and thoughtful song writing, before leading into an unusually bellowed passage that’s about as close to clean vocals as Joel gets. “Rod of Asclepius”, a 2019 single rightfully either re-recorded or remixed for inclusion in this album, begins to flash some of the more progressive potential of Scythelord. Classic thrash riffs with hints of Vektor are interrupted with a couple of false starts that keep the listener guessing, more varied and dynamic vocal delivery, the remarkable sliding chorus riff, and a mid-section break into a solo that, again, subtly makes reference to riffs earlier in the track. “Comedy in Blood” rounds out the first, more straightforward – for lack of a better term – half of the album; another high tempo, high aggression track with two slight breaks where the vocals delivered over solo bass effectively springboard back into the Havok.

Suddenly, with “Just a Memory”, we get a short, almost hardcore-punk track sung entirely in Joel’s native Swedish. It’s not my favourite style, and does seem at odds with the rest of the record, but it is an indication of how they’re able to change up their sound and still be extremely competent musicians. Switching gears again, “The Other” is then a purely instrumental track that begins in one place and ends somewhere very different but consistently maintains a cosmic, spacey atmosphere helped not in the least by some very Death-like bass work. The descending riff in the latter half is an astonishing payoff after the slow build up to that point, which is also a refreshing couple of minutes to catch your breath before the longest track, “Earth Boiling Dystopia”. The slow death metal introduction that leads into the main marching thrash riff is exemplary of how they deftly tread the line between the two genres. The intensity in the vocals is noticeably increased in this track, especially during the chill-inducing delivery of lines like ‘into the funerary box of humanistic rites’. More unique bellowing that verges on power metal also features prominently. The length of the song allows the riffs to meander a little but they drop seamlessly back into the chorus before the structure becomes incoherent.

The final track features lyrical and musical call-backs to previous tracks, the oddly optimistic outro is even identical to that of the previous song. Small details like this are appreciable highlights of the writing in this record, but they wouldn’t mean much if the music itself wasn’t up to snuff. Thankfully, the meat and potatoes of the record are fantastic. There is both heft and bite to the mix of instrument tones, and the riffs themselves are imaginative, with a satisfying ratio of technical controlled chaos to caveman head bangs. Joel’s impressive vocal performance is also a large part of what elevates this album, as well as the unique structure where tracks stray from the norm as they go on. After cutting his teeth with Vargskelethor, this much more sober, profound and technically impressive endeavour was a an extremely pleasant surprise from Joel and one that deserves recognition.

Recommended tracks: Equanimity, Comedy in Blood, Earth Boiling Dystopia
Recommended for fans of: Vektor, Voivod, Dark Angel
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Twitter | Metal-Archives page

Label: Independent

Scythelord is:
– Frank Vincent Hernandez (bass, guitar)
– Joel Johansson (guitar, vocals)