Walking out of a demolished building, blood and sweat soaked from a human wrecking ball of a growling, screaming, singing brutal noise trifecta with wailing guitars, rolling grooves and memorable hooks comes Knoxville Tennessee’s Scent of Remains. They truly are a metal band defying description, breaking genres, sub-genre rules and not giving a damn. There’s no singing on death metal records! Let alone an acoustic song that could play rock arenas. The bluesy, depressive, moody solos of Suicidal Tendencies and the clean, spoken/sung lines of God Forbid with death metal growls and some black metal screeching from Dani’s personal acid bath.
F.Y.F.T intro starts with a POD style spoken call to arms. The Forfeit has angry guitar riffs, ripped from the dirtiest, grimiest subterranean gutter, smoldered with Michael Yates growl screeched screams. The wheels of the machine keep turning with triple team, dynamically demonic vocals and a more graphically intense Sabbath sound with some DRI punk riffage and guitar wails with unbalanced uncertain intensions by Herb Himes and Brian Leemings.
Hold You Under with vicious intent as the guitars grip takes the air and light from you, holding you down with riff-like chains. Descent quickens into deeper, darker blackness, slowly escalating to the moment when the pressure and lack of air forces your wide-eyed panic as the last air bubble escapes, your mouth opens water rushing in. Between Hate Eternal, Gorefest growls and screams, haunting clean Doc Coyle style verses are sung as you fight the depths…. then float.
From Ash We Rise, under a blackened sky, borrows 30 seconds of 70’s Sabbath as the battlefield fills with war cries. Lock the windows, close the doors, BTK (bind torture kill) the metal boogie man’s coming and he’s everything your darkest haunting nightmares portray him to be.
Exhale Oblivion has a slow deep melodious beginning with Exodus solos and Pantera hooks as lyrics battle addiction and inhaled shallow comforts. Wakefield brings out the stool and acoustics with the spotlight shining on an almost back porch country charmed melody with soulful singing bringing unheard of unplugged emotion, self-identity and clean vocals to a ‘death metal’ record. Almost going into uncharted radio friendly Nickelback territory, but if they have the balls and talent to do it, why not.
The electricity’s back on and the dark hands of the devil are coming down the hall, overshadowing the walls into blackness, This Present Darkness approaches. Yates pulls out his best Kings X/Sevendust voice on Shepherd and some hollow cemetery gates open.
The vocal hiss of Snake in the Grass balances the clean sung namesake with straight forward progressive metal guitar marching. Parasite’s opening minute of eerie melancholy notes creep along the skin raising hairs as the predator inches closer to its prey’s target opening. Then calming into a more fun System of a Down vibe as cookie monster gets loaded on some sick venom and those eyeballs really roll. Guitars get Unholy with some heavy clanking riffs releasing the hatred after a glimpse into the devils eyes. These Dying Days is their ending metallic homage to Cthulhu.
Since 2009 they’re ‘spreading the scent’ with a high energy, emotional show sharing the stage with such heavy names as Fear Factory, Hate Eternal, Devil Driver, Davey Suicide, 9 Electric and Kobra and the Lotus among others. They play tight as a band, writing heavy songs people will remember and giving the crowd a great show.
With diverse influences ranging from Lamb of God/Metallica/Slayer to UFO/Thin Lizzy/ZZ Top, Scent of Remains will melt faces anywhere and everywhere possible with melodic brutality with Under a Blackened Sky releasing January 21st via Pavement Entertainment.
Along with their 2009 demo they’ve released 2010’s full length mind.thought.fear and the Parasite EP in 2012. www.scentofremains.com
