Viscerally modern and at times, eye-poppingly extreme, Luxemburg’s Scarred have a nice little mish-mash going for themselves on their sophomore Gaia/Madea. First plays at making comparisons for these guys go right to Gojira, but, that would be awfully lazy to project the Frenchmen onto Scarred. Yeah, there’s the occasional bounce riffs that get things moving (like on “Cinder”), and the unyielding churn of “Psychogenesis,” could land on From Mars to Sirius, so it might be at least passable to connect the two parties on a peripheral level for the time being. Translation: We are moderately lazy.
With production duties by way of former Textures guitarist Joachim Jacobs, Gaia/Madea should provide ample sonic ear candy to the denizens who like their current metal clean and polished. However, just because the album sounds sparkling clean, doesn’t mean it bypasses any heaviness. Case in point, the grinded “Low,” or the thrashy “Knot,” which makes for a good sideline view of Strapping Young Lad without the over-the-top fury. Current (and lone) Nevermore guitarist Atilla Vörös even drops by for a guest solo on “The Knot”. Dude can play his ass off.
Gaia/Madea banks on the listener being able to hang with its dynamic ability to cull from the death metal/modern metal potpourri. If one can do that, then consider Scarred your next viable option in the European metal derby.