Review: Sarcas – Rise of the snowflakes

Style: Thrash Metal, Rap Metal, Progressive Metal (Mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Limp Bizkit, Between the Buried and Me, Pantera, Havok
Review by: Dave
Country: Slovakia
Release date: 20 May 2024

Our world is in shambles. A society that is built on lies and tyrannical anguish will only serve to destroy itself, and we truly live in that society. Because our ability to say what we want has been eroded, you’re not really reading this: I’m actually transmitting this review directly into your brain through secret glyph-based technology to avoid my review being silenced by Our Tyrannical Subway Overlords™ and other secret government entities. In our most dire moment on the brink of societal collapse, we need a Joker to rise from the ashes of a suffering civilization and bring us into an era free of snowflake Netflixes and spoiled entitled Snapchattings where the only medicine you need is a red pill.

Thankfully, Sarcas are here to assume their role as true jokers on Rise of the snowflakes, spearheading the fall of evil regimes with their anthemic takedown of… daddy’s evil porridge plot? For those not savvy with the revolution, Sarcas are a Slovak thrash metal outfit who occasionally dip their toes into progressive (musically, not politically) ideas: think The Showdown mixed with thrashier moments, occasionally indulging in BTBAM-impersonating-Limp Bizkit rap delivered with nasally droning clean vocals. Sometimes, as a treat, they’ll even deliver clean vocals blown out of oblivion, as if someone took just a single channel of the vocal mix and shoved up the gain so hard that the slider broke, as seen on “Life is Beautiful” and heartwarming-life-advice-as-song-title “Click Ads & Shut Up.”

Occasionally, Sarcas’ instrumental mish-mash comes together well, though these more inspired ideas are almost without fail followed by bizarre non-sequiturs. On the first verse of “Men In Black,” thrashy riffs playfully dance around fast and lopsided drum grooves until the moment is almost immediately ruined by a weird swing rhythm poorly delivered with half-speaking, half-singing vocals. This same compositional pattern is present on “Walk Alone,” where, among five minutes of fast-paced thrash, Sarcas takes two separate opportunities to slam on the brakes and deliver a quick snazzy jazz lick. This could work if executed well, but in this case the execution falls remarkably flat, with these jazzy ideas introduced without any context near the end of the album. Another moment of “inspiration” comes through the huge orchestra-guitar interplay on opener “White Pony Show,” which has its momentum immediately destroyed by a twenty-second voiceover of someone making incomprehensible mouth noises over a piano instrumental break. You really have to hear for yourself to understand.

Lyrically, Rise of the snowflakes can only be described by its aptly-titled single “Porridge Seppuku”: there’s something intense, violent, and pointed going on here, but its point is often lost in mushy, unfocused, and sometimes utterly incomprehensible lyricism. It’s clear that Sarcas are angry about something, but what that something is is hopelessly unclear over Rise of the snowflakes’ runtime: the clearest message I can get is “Click Ads & Shut Up”’s denigration of individuals who waste away interacting with brands. This is a message I don’t necessarily disagree with, but it’s delivered as a condemnation of the people itself and places virtually no blame on the ads, which is the worst possible way to express this take. Remember, everyone: advertisement good, people bad! Outside of “Click Ads & Shut Up,” there is virtually nothing to be gleaned here, except that Sarcas is angry at “sheeple,” and his angry, unfocused cause is not helped at all by the spectacularly broken English. I don’t fault anyone for struggling with a second language, as writing in another language is a difficult and admirable endeavor, but Sarcas, I gently suggest you to run these lines by other people in your next output, because there are instances where I truly can’t parse what is being said.

Undoubtedly, Rise of the snowflakes is edgy cringe, but I feed off this kind of cringe: every Max Enix, Black Hole, and Corey Feldman that I consume only serves to augment my power, and Sarcas has provided me with ample nutrition to tide me over until Tommy Wiseau’s next cinematic opus. Instrumentally, Rise of the snowflakes is a rollercoaster ride of occasionally enjoyable moments falling face-first into bafflingly weird non-sequiturs, and any good musical ideas presented here are then wasted on incomprehensible edgelord ramblings about our brains being melted by 5G under the guise of anarchist anthems. It’s such a shame that occasionally decent instrumental output is tarnished by weird and poorly-executed edgy gobbledygook. For everyone’s sake, get a ghost writer next time.

Recommended tracks: White Pony Show for the mouth noises, Porridge Seppuku for the bad rapping, and Click Ads & Shut Up because it’s a funny song title
You may also like: Announce the Apocalypse, Death Mex, Max Enix, Ben Baruk
Final verdict: 2/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal Archives

Label: Independent Release

Sunnata is:
– Jaroslav Plichta (bass, guitars, vocals)
– Michal Plichta (drums)
– Juraj Kutes (guitars, vocals)