I heard just one song, opening track ‘Caring Is Gone’, and I rather leapt at the chance of hearing more. A brand new band from Finland settling themselves nicely in that awkward-to-categorize genre often (and rather loosely) classified as Dark Atmospheric Metal. This opening track manages to start like Riverside, incorporate elements of Borknagar through to Amorphis and a feel like Green Carnation. All these similarities also crop up on other tracks to varying degrees, but gives you an idea of where the album is going. From heartfelt acoustic passages to double-kick driven heaviness, this is an album with depth and diversity and Scapes have stamped their own identity all over it.
All clean sung (delivered in a low-to-mid range, sometimes harmonized, always note perfect, melodic style, which is ideal for every track), each song crafts a mood from the off, never the same tempo as it’s predecessor, this is an album that has you thinking one minute of current Opeth and Arcturus the next. But it’s never a jarring or uncomfortable transition, this band SO smooth. I can’t believe this is a debut – there is such maturity on show throughout. I’m certain this album will evoke many different comparisons for each individual listener, but as it’s befallen to lucky old me to put it into words this time…I’ll take a basis of Borknagar, Green Carnation and mid-career Amorphis…and then, as just one example, throw in Lake Of Tears crossed with Pure Reason Revolution with a Nordic twist – ‘A Song Of A Mountain’. That’s just one song…
Scapes do their thing so effortlessly, it seems like it’s harder to describe than the band make it sound to produce. As example, and continuing to take the aforementioned bands as a base, ‘Devil May Care’ is the most complete Green Carnation style track – but with a Vintersorg/Cronian edge, there’s an Empyrium/Opeth feel to the melancholy and sombre ‘Every Waking Dawn’ (complete with fabulous lead guitar touches towards the end), ‘The Melancholy Cycle’ has that Arcturus vibe, but also incorporates Winds, Fall Of The Leafe, Audrey Horne also spring to mind on occasion and everything reaches an epic, dynamic conclusion with ‘Doomscapes’. A Scandinavian Metal monolith – it has more light and shade than a row of beach huts and aside from squeezing in a little Paradise Lost, just oozes OpethesqueAmorphisiousBorknagaryRiversideGreencarnationness – if I can copyright that as a description. It even has the album’s only harsh vocals towards the end which, along with the guitar-line had me thinking of My Dying Bride! It’s all in there!
I know I’ve drawn a lot of comparisons, but that is only to try and articulate all the different styles that Scapes manage to cram into their debut 7 track opus. This also goes to illustrate that is a band blend styles like the ones mentioned previously, there is a hell of a lot of themselves in there too, or it would just sound messy. “One:Unseen:One” is an album full of power, professionalism, reflection and emotion. There are songs on here that can have you feeling elation and sorrow within a minute of each other. Finland has unleashed yet another top class Metal act on the rest of the world.
(8.5/10 Andy Barker)
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