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Prosthetic Records is a label that confuses me as a listener and fan of many bands on it's roster. The label goes from signing acts in the Black Metal field, to going to an instrumental Progressive Rock fit. Scale the Summit isn't the only band of this style on the label, but luckily the artwork on the cover may set off a red flag for most veteran Metal fans. While this is far from a bad album, it's just odd to see a label sign in such musical diversity such as this. But, really it doesn't matter too much considering that Carving Desert Canyons is actually a good album, and anyone who may have purchased this release by mistake more then likely still kept it because of the musical talent the band has and presents on this, Carving Desert Canyons, the band's second full-length release. While the album starts off a little out there with "Bloom", it does a good job at representing the natural feel of the album's title. No, there's no nature sound effects, but the music does a good job of setting up the ambience of a nice day somewhere in a desert, or desert like area. The guitars on this track are played with great talent, and the drums fill the void that sometimes happens when the guitars get a little too showoffish, which is nice for the album. There isn't anything really that heavy on this release, outside of a small section on the track "Glacial Planet" that brings a rather darkened and dismal sound to the track to break away from it's rather sunny disposition. As far as the "sunny disposition" aspect goes, all the tracks on here feature great guitar skills with a sound that just give off a very upbeat feeling thanks to how they are played. Many of the songs, like the aforementioned "Glacial Planet" and "Bloom", as well as the spectacular "Dunes", have an ambience that could lift you away from reality for a bit and almost take you on a ride. While these tracks are able to just about accomplish this feat, the rest of the album simply doesn't quite do that, but focuses more on writing tracks that still have an impact. "City in the Sky" is a very impressive instrumental track that is very catchy and will surely influence you to create your own lyrics in your head to go along with the music. This track also features a somewhat heavier aspect as well, but it's nothing like that on "Glacial Planet", still having it's somewhat upbeat sound and just being a little faster then the rest of the song. There's nothing really all that dramatically negative about this release outside of the last track, "Giants". The song itself is good, but after the first four minutes you'll start to get bored with it and just want to hit the stop button, only because the song is composed mostly of what you already heard at the start of the album with exception to "Bloom". It's as if the album kind of reverts back to what it started out as, even though the further you get into it, it seems like the album continues to shift and grow in other directions just enough to make you take notice and keep you listening. The talent presented in this song, however, is hard to deny the existence of and is worth just braving the track out for the ending where the guitars really are showcased. The start of the album isn't really much, and after a while you'll probably not want to go back to it either, skipping ahead to "Dunes", or at least "The Great Plains", which is where the music seems to start to develop more. Scale the Summit's follow-up album Carving Desert Canyons is a pretty good album, and only flawed in the fact that there's too much talent being shown here. The guitar work becomes overly obvious, and it isn't until the music begins to expand a bit that the album becomes thoroughly enjoyable. It also may take more then one or two listens to fully appreciate the album for what it is, then after a few more spins it begins to come apart a bit. The latter of the album is still highly enjoyable and still makes up taking out the time to check out the release. The more upbeat sound to the album is great, but it's sad that only a few songs really seem to get you to drift away into the world the music is trying to depict. Either way, Carving Desert Canyons does have it's flaws, but it's still an album worth checking out. |
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