Not what you'd normally expect coming from Prosthetic Records, Carving Desert Canyons from California instrumental four-piece Scale the Summit sounds like a release that would sound more at home on Shrapnel, InsideOut, or Magna Carta, but is a nice change of pace from this extreme metal label. Featuring the guitar talents of Chris Letchford & Travis LeVrier, along with drummer Pat Skeffington and bassist Joe Eberhardt, Scale the Summit have put together eight instantly catchy instrumental progressive metal songs here, stuff that should easily be of interest to fans of Dream Theater, Mastodon, Liquid Tension Experiment, Canvas Solaris, Joe Satriani, Cynic, Steve Morse Band, and Between the Buried and Me. From the majestic opener "Bloom", to the complex riffery of "Sargasso Sea", and even the fusiony, almost Dixie Dregs-ish "The Great Plains", there's tasty playing and memorable melodies at every corner. The weaving guitar lines of "Dunes" mingle with frantic rhythms and crunchy riffs, while "Age of the Tide" offers up heavier arrangements, but just as complex, featuring ripping guitar solos and some impressive drum chops from Skeffington. Plenty of stop/start riffing and legato solos abound on the proggy "Glacial Planet", and "City in the Sky" is a perfect marriage of progressive metal and fusion, Letchford and LeVrier throwing a multitude of intricate lead harmonies and riffs at the listener while Eberhardt lays down some wonderful lead bass lines. The CD closes with the epic "Giants", an impossibly complex piece featuring dizzying rhythms and plenty of interlocking guitar patterns.
This is just classy, super stuff from start to finish, all the more amazing considering that the average age of the players is just 22. Scale the Summit are the next instrumental 'metal/prog/fusion' (they like to call themselves 'adventure metal') force folks, and Carving Desert Canyons is their arrival into the big leagues. Highly recommended.
Track Listing
- Bloom
- Sargasso Sea
- The Great Plains
- Dunes
- Age of the Tide
- Glacial Planet
- City in the Sky
- Giants
Printer Friendly Page
Send to a Friend
