SCARECROW N.W.A. managed to take a step forward with their latest effort Ishmael. In the past, the compositions contained a lot of different parts, but nowadays the band is able to structure the partly easy to comprehend tracks in a catchy way. The new album is built up as a concept, taking its inspiration from Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick”.

During the opening and unloading tune Call Me Ishmael, variable vocals and guitar leads as well as solos are combined with double bass elements and catchy rhythms for head bangers. The keyboard isn’t used in many cases and this tactics provides a lot of penetrating power to the tracks.
Some modern influences like the riffs in the beginning of The Fallen or some hardcore nuances concerning the vocals are coherently integrated in the overall picture. The able guitar work and a lot of felicitous ideas in the songs’ build-up are additional brownies in the sophisticated Death Metal sound. I can feel that the band shed a lot of heart-blood while composing, and after 15 years of existence the group knows best how to keep up suspense during long tracks, too.
Singer Bernd offers dark Death-Metal vocals, moderately screeched Black metal timbre as well as heroic clear voices. Every now and then, two voices are matched and this effect boosts the refrain of the track Schizophrenia up to a nice catchy tune. In mentioned song, SCARECROW N.W.A. combine different elements of the whole Metal genre. A lot of variation is taking place and also the music’s technical aspect knows to convince me. Over and above, the transparent and powerful sound shows up positively, whereby the regular CD will be re-mastered anew.
Admittedly, there are a few disadvantages on this disc, in the fourth songs Dominion X, the extremely variable vocals are exaggerated and some other clean vocals parts are too dominant – but let’s return to one of many plus factors: the oriental influences in Goddess Of Death sound interesting, the throttled tempo adds zest to the composition. The following, compared simple and straight performed song Phantoms misses out a certain pinch of experiments. The fine tuning is not easy at all – but SCARECROW N.W.A. will develop in the right direction for sure to wipe out this deficit ;)

The Styrians released a strong album with suspenseful songs, variable vocals and very well done guitar melodies. In my opinion, the compositions run the risk of overloading because of the richness of ideas, but for the bigger part the CD sounds homogenously and catchy, even so sometimes less is more! Finally, I am really surprised by the development in song writing; SCARECROW Now Works Ace!