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Scale the Summit - Carving Desert Canyons Hot

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Editor's rating

6.7

out of 10

Reviewed by:
Keith Carlson
Top 10 Reviewer
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Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Average user rating: 9.5
1 User reviews

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Music Information

Track Listing:
01. Bloom
02. Sargasso Sea
03. Great Plains
04. Dunes
05. Age of the Tide
06. Glacial Planet
07. City in the Sky
08. Giants

Artist: Scale the Summit
Title: Carving Desert Canyons
Genre: Progressive Metal • Progressive Rock • Instrumental
Release Date: 17 February 2009
Record Label: Prosthetic Records
Format: Full-length
Country: United States of America
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Scale the Summit - Carving Desert Canyons

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Editor review

8 of 18 people found the following review helpful


Overall rating (weighted)		6.7
Musicianship		8.0
Composition		6.0
Experimentation		5.0
Production		9.0
Value		6.0

2 years have passed since Scale the Summit released their debut album 'Monument'. Unfortunately, I'm not as blown away with 'Carving Desert Canyons' as I was with 'Monument.' There are some really good passages and a couple killer riffs, but mostly the album has an all too consistent flow without many big ups and downs. I feel that the band tried really hard to write a quality, Prosthetic Records-worthy album, but the end result sounds too much like they played it safe, for my tastes.

'Monument' had a very classy, progressive METAL feel. Almost all metal or aggressive aspects have since vanished or at least have been pushed into the far background. This album is extremely 'posi' and clean - just a hair too much. The atmosphere of the album is very vast and grandiose, such as the album cover and track list suggests. The problem that I have with the earthy, natural, and elemental theme of the album is that it seems to be stuck on an observational level (from the metaphorical point of view of the songs). I kept inching and waiting for volcanoes to erupt, winds of a category 5 hurricane, soft ball sized hail, negative 200 degree temperatures, wild fires burning away half a continent, etc. "Glacial Planet" shows the hair of aggressiveness still left. I miss the nostalgia of that gorgeous whipping splash and that punchy double bass work Pat Skeffington played on 'Monument'. I have to be really honest: if nobody told me they are playing 8-string guitars, I would have never known. I don't expect every 8-string player to be as heavy as Meshuggah, but where's the low end?

If metaphorically Scale the Summit played a song about a mountain cliff, they wanted to you to stand still and take in the view. However, I wanted to bungee jump off the edge. After listening to this album all the way through, one might feel very refreshed. I think this album is too solid in that respect. It's too accessible. They obviously have the 'posi' and heartfelt side of progressive music down, but what other musical sides do they have to offer? 'Carving Desert Canyons' seems PG-rated, and doesn't seem to break a single musical convention (besides not having a singer), that I couldn't take much away from this album

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Last updated: Tuesday, 17 March 2009

User reviews

Average user rating from: 1 user(s)


Overall rating (weighted)		9.5
Musicianship		9.0
Composition		10.0
Experimentation		9.0
Production		10.0
Value		10.0

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11 of 18 people found the following review helpful

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Written by steven jurrs - View all my reviews - Top 50 Reviewer


Overall rating (weighted)		9.5
Musicianship		9.0
Composition		10.0
Experimentation		9.0
Production		10.0
Value		10.0

This album is amazing. Song writing and production is 10 x better than Monument.

Just wanted to correct Keith since most reviewers don't do any research on a band.

The dude plays an 8 string guitar with one low and one high string, from a standard six. So its
actually impossible to get Meshuggah lows when he doesn't have an 8 string tuned the way they do. So X that out.

Pretty sure most of the material was written before Prosthetic Records signed them. Who actually thinks about their label when they are writing a cd, that seems pretty ridiculous unless its a pop band. I honestly expected a better review from this site.

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