Chasm, The - The Scars of a Lost Reflective Shadow (2022)^{Release ID: 37230}

The Chasm are one of those bands that I've checked out many times, but have never been grabbed by their work the way the constant praise they receive suggests I should be. This latest offering seemed like a perfect opportunity to really dive into one of their releases and hopefully find the treasures that have been avoiding me to date. Sadly, that hasn't turned out to be the case. While this is a very solid album, with consistently decent riffs and a few 4 star tracks, it lacks anything particularly impressive that would explain the fandom. I reckon I've listened to the album about 10 times, and I still find it difficult to call anything a real highlight. The riffs are the obvious strength, and every track has at least one that makes you pay attention, but both the vocals and drums are generally lacking in power and effectiveness. Antonio León's drumming in particular can only be described as pedestrian, getting bogged down in a simple one - two beat for much of the album. If there had been more creativity and variety in that department, then some of these songs may have forced their way beyond mildly enjoyable and into the realm of must listen. As things are though, well, I'm still keen to hear more of what the band has to offer, but I can't say I'm particularly excited to keep The Scars of a Lost Reflective Shadow on my playlist.

Finding death metal that isn't of the melodic variety has become quite the challenging task in recent years. Too many times the musicians rely solely on tonal and structural dissonance in order to make the music sound as vicious as possible. But what these artists fail to realize is that being engulfed by texture and the sonic equivalent of mush may be exciting, how am I supposed to listen to this outside of the mosh pit? Without any structure, many of these songs just become lifeless. Perhaps my experience with more melodic sounding music has left me numb to the endless chugging, blast beats and breakdowns, and begging for some kind of sustenence.

There are exceptions, one such is the Daniel Corchado solo project, The Chasm. Records such as Light of the Infraworld were melodic enough to at least give a number of tracks on the album some staying power, while still not pulling any punches during the traditional death metal passages. And in 2022, The Scars of a Lost Reflective Shadow goes to show how melodic tendencies can be interwoven into heavier, technical death metal frameworks and still sound good! Although I will admit some of this record is sounding pretty formulaic for The Chasm as they try to incorporate more true progressive passages into their work.

Like with Light of the Infraworld, this album starts off with an instrumental, "Return of the End (The Ancient Spirit that Makes me Aware)", but this time The Chasm has included three unique instrumentals. The first, "The Constellations Stagger" has a pretty standard death metal groove, while the lead guitar carriers a pretty good motif, while the second "The Paths that Lead to the Abysm" is a death-thrash stomper. The guitars providing simple motifs are expected, but having some melodic foundational device gives it a momentum boost. And for a track that is one of the album's shortest that can only be a good sign.

The rest is okay. Like I mentioned earlier, this album is all ready to start dropping some progressive tendencies as early as "A Keen but Empty Sight" and they can start to get repetitive after a while as songs modulate from black metal open tremolo guitars, slow doom-y "melodies" and thrash/death palm muted guitar and skank beat drums. From a production standpoint, I enjoy how open it all sounds with the guitars not being compressed like ass and giving the bass some presence in the mix. The percussion sounds decent, except for the kick drum, which ever so slightly fade in and out of time whenever performing a double kick passage. In the end, it doesn't affect the outcome of the track, but it can be disorienting and distracting if you listen through headphones. Daniel's vocals are much improved over previous The Chasm album's as well; I once claimed them as scrappy, but here they fit the mold. Maybe a little bit on the restrained side and therefore hard to make out without a lyric sheet in front of you, but the tone is there.

I like The Chasm and this record as well. My adventure's into more of the technical side of death metal has not produced too many positive results in recent years, but The Chasm are here to fill some of that void. I wish more groups were willing to be as daring with their blending of melodic/technical soundscapes as The Chasm and Allegaeon are.