Scarefield are a relatively new project with their debut horror concept album, A Quiet Country, releasing this year. The band is composed of two members, Simone Manuli & Markus Kristoffersson, which can sometimes hinder a unique style band purely on the sense on creative direction of the music; being able to bounce & expand ideas between multiple members. However even with just two official members, this debut album is still able to find its musical clarity with some exceptions.
As noted before, A Quiet Country is a concept album paying respects to classic horror, with even artwork showing love to Stephen King’s Children Of The Corn.
Essentially the first tale in this horror themed journey is the opening track ‘Ancient Evil’, where you are immediately greeted with an 80’s thrash metal tone. Without knowing how they recorded, traditional analog or D.I. ( direct input ) with plug-ins, the guitar tones have an absolutely nice crunch to them & harmonizing leads provide an eerie feeling for this track about The Call Of Cthulhu from H.P. Lovecraft.
Even though this album is directed toward its love for classic horror, it also shines as a concept for the 80’s style metal that influenced them. On the sixth track for this album ‘God Of Terror’, the tone of Megadeth is very prevalent and will have the listener unknowingly throwing their horns in the air.
This debut album was also produced by the members themselves and mastered Ronnie Bjorstrom. As inspiring and respectable it is for bands to produce their own music, there are some short comings that fall with that as well. “A Quiet Country” weaves a great tale of thrash & melodic metal, but feels copy & paste throughout the album. Markus Kristofferson vocals sound as if they are in the same key for each track, which sounds amazing within the first three opening songs but as the album progresses, the only differences you feel are the lyrics.
Scarefield’s debut album is a step in the right direction for a modern ‘80s metal while creatively throwing love toward horror fans. However with almost a cloned sound for each tale in this album, it feels like the sequel might actually be better.