#subscale

Here I am wiriting, back from hiatus... again. Hopefully a bit longer than before, as I’ve got some of the more tedious stuff of recent months off my back. But, to be perfectly honest, this post doesn’t exactly flow out of my fingers. A lot of that has to do with me taking almost a little break from Metal music recently. I’ll probably get to that in the coming posts (because, after all, who’s saying I can only write about Metal here, right? Apart from some implications of the title, of course.).

But good flow or no good flow, there’s still releases rolling out that I just have to gather some words on. And one of them is definitely Subscales new album “Devolution”. Subscale are a Coratian band first visibly active with their 2012 EP “Fictional Constructs”. I personally fully realised their existence with their 2013 full length record “The Last Submission”. Stepping onto the stage in that year with some Meshuggah-influences under the hood, their reception, as it is for many bands during that time, got entangled with the still pretty roaring djent movement at the time. Something that, looking at the tags beneath their albums, they don’t exactly resent. And why should they. But percieving them in that context may lead you to expect a much more Meshuggah-styled riffing approach than they actually have.

In contrast to that expectation “The Last Submission” was actually less sterile, more oriented towards a flowing, more rumbly groove. Add to that a tendency towards harsh vocals and short, pointed clean vocal highlights and a somewhat reduced role of the electronic component, in comparison to other projects like Neosis or Nakaruga, and you have a sound more akin to early Hacride, The Interbeing and a whiff of Fear Factory here and there. Which, at the time, and still currently, is actually quite a bit refreshing among a lot of bands with a very futuristic, clean and more Electronica-oriented sound.

The Last Submission by Subscale

Their recently released second album, finally after three years and a failed crowdfunding campaign, “Devolution”, continues this approach but with slightly more coherent and balanced songwriting and sequencing that has hookier and more overtly harsh moments distributed more evenly across the songs and the album as a whole, creating a nicer flow, even though an immediate earcatcher like “Inception” might not be around this time.

So, be sure to give this one a liste, too: