BLACK COBRA
Feather & Stone
(At a Loss)

GRAVE IN THE SKY
Cutlery Hits China: English
for the Hearing Impaired
(Heart & Crossbone)

GHOSTLIMB
S/T
(Self-Released)

THE PLIGHT
Black Summer
(Visible Noise)

NADJA
Radiance of Shadows
(Alien 8)

OBSTRUKTOR
Dead On Arrival 

(Self-Released)

MARBLEBOG
Forestheart

(Autopsy Kitchen)

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Gorgeous stuff here.  The genre that some fools are calling 'intelligent metal' has started shitting subpar stuff already, and post-rock is nothing but a tag with very little thought put into it. Instrumetal? I think not, Scraps of Tape is well-beyond all those miserable tags.  It’s expansive and beautiful, yet you can call their lack of pretension within a minute of the ambitious opener “Death as it Should Be”, where right from the start we get the idea; these guys get heavy but their tuning has a lot more to do with volume than girth; the result is more organic, more direct and thankfully, more affecting.  

Some of this may be because Scarps of Tape seems to be eluding the metal aspects of their music.  Bands that usually embrace these sub genres, take their time to get there but in almost every track make it clear that shit’s about to get heavy and getting heavy means you are metal.  “Pickpockets Vow” for the first time introduces vocals and gives us the title of this record.  The cut builds and never plateaus, it entices, wiggles its rear and there is no pay off. Sometimes the chase is all that counts and these guys seem to know that well.   “Liege MG” is also calmed but not quite, let’s get this clear; those are two different things and just because the track is not about to pummel your ass doesn’t mean it’s not meant to hurt you.  It’s got clear strings, a paused tempo and redundant basslines the likes of which makes the song resonate well after it is over.

Whether we want to lump this band with any of the other pallbearers of those sub genres mentioned above it’s entirely up to you.  There are several aspects of their music that could very well merit their lumping and association, but my point is this band deserves better. This Is a Copy, Is This a Copy? simply doesn’t sound like the work of a band that’s jumping into a smoothly sailing ship. Its originality and due success simply depends on the listener.

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