Similar Bands: Born From Pain, Napalm Death, Full Blown Chaos
Review:
It's always nice to hear what Europe is doing with their hardcore scene. Scalping Screen is actually the first hardcore band, to my recollection, that I've come across to be from Finland. I popped this disc in with the utmost curiosity because I had no idea what the Finnish take on hardcore was. Well at least now after listening to this, I have some what an idea.
Scalping Screen seemed to take lessons from genre giants in Europe. It took me getting through the entire first song to place what their main sound reminded me of. I knew I heard it before but couldn't place my finger on it. Then it hit me, Napalm Death. Now before the metal nerds jump all over me, let me explain. If you take Napalm Death's newer records and remove the blastbeats, you are left with pretty much a bunch of punk infused thrash records. That's Scalping Screen's core. Even vocalist Mika Lisitzin, sounds remarkably like Barney Greenway. Straying away from the metal world Scalping Screen also takes influence from Europe's version of Hatebreed, Born From Pain. The "toughguy" hardcore element is definitely present and the breakdowns will leave no doubt in your mind.
While the thought of mixing Born From Pain with Napalm Death sounds like a recipe for awesome, it isn't near as good as it sounds. The album is pretty solid but unfortunately the effect starts to wear off about the midway point of the record. I think this one of those cases where if I broke this album up amongst a lot of other songs I would enjoy each song, especially the last few tracks, a lot more than I did listening to the entire album straight through. The album is just repetitive and the band blows their wad on the best songs within the first 5 tracks. I think some people will be able to cruise through the album and enjoy it in its entirety more than I did, but I, on a few occasions had to check which track I was listening to because I thought I heard the same song 2 tracks ago.
Overall this record is decent but it's not something I'd want to listen to straight through ever again. I won't skip over any of the songs when they come up in my iPod during a shuffle session I don't expect to ever throw this record in during a road trip. If you like high-energy, thrashy, and metal influenced hardcore, you'll dig this record.or at least the first half of it.
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