A Heavy Rock Band from Russia. On October 22nd, 2021, Scarecrow released their second studio album, Scarecrow II. A band not only transports you to the sound of the past but also combines a blend of old and new. The album was released through Wise Blood Records.
Introduction:
Scarecrow, Scarecrow II: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production. Our analysis will provide valuable insights to help you determine if this album is worth adding to your collection.
The First Three Sins of Scarecrow II
Let’s start by discussing the first three sins of Scarecrow and their second studio album, Scarecrow II.
The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: Features intense, smouldering guitar riffs and clean, melodious chord progressions imbued with a mesmerising, bluesy ambience. It also incorporates expressive fretboard solos and a superb sense of rhythm and blues. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Combines the operatic/bluesy scale of Geddy Lee from Rush with the style of Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin, incorporating harmonica and flute. The Third Sin—The Percussions: Diving deep into a wide array of tones, beats, moods, and tempos in drumming, incorporating floor-peddling rhythms.
The Fourth Sin: Overall Discussion: Seventies hard rock n’ roll and Led Zeppelin rushing through the veins of the band’s music
Immediately after the listener presses the play button, the listener is welcomed to the opening track, The Endless Ocean Overturne, which welcomes the listener with the sound of the ocean and dark atmospheric (beautiful/soothing) piano and orchestral that softly laps onto the shoreline.
The second track, Blizzard, follows suit, opening to the sound of wind whistling through your speakers before welcoming the listener with this (dream-like atmosphere) heavy rock Geddy Lee and slow bluesy Rush signature style. It is topped with an energetic signature seventies hard rock n’ roll and Led Zeppelin vibe rushing through the veins of the music. The lyrics are metaphorical and directly related to The Endless Ocean.
Simultaneously, the album creates and deliverance an energetic/adrenaline, fun, entertaining, never-dull moment or repetitive moment, but topped with extraordinary production 1, devilmanship, eight equally solid, strongly composed songs with their own identity (don’t sound the same) that grab your attention.
The overall of the music has a nice structured and captures the soul essences (influences) of Rush, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and few others, which is all woven (perfect/well balanced, even don’t overpower each other) together with elements of blues-rock, hard/heavy rock, progressive rock, rhythm and blues, jazz. With the additional influences of Zeppelin’ moments within their music, their are even moments they are some taints of that hard and blusey of Coverdale-Page in the band’s music.
Topped with the sound of the 60’s/’70s, proto/early metal, occult-psychedelic, doom metal, a bit of thunder of heavy metal, additional sound FX, darkly and picturesque sections, various moods, flute, harmonica and acoustic moments.
Moving over to the devilmanship of Artemis’ vocals, which shines on this release and shows off his capabilities, along with his band mates, who all floor their devilmanship of playing their instruments to perfection—bringing the album/music alive in a lavished and captivating (enjoyable) epic/dark poetic way.
While the rest of the devilmanship comprises of fruit of art composition: Den’s guitar work comprises a fusion of hot, smoky guitar riffs/clean melodic chord playing filled with a trippy and bluesy vibe, fret-board solos and an excellent feeling of rhythm and blues his riffs and music. Vadim adds a backbone to the music with slow/mid-tempo drumming and floor-peddling beats.
The album ends with the last song, Endless Ocean, with the (again) sound of waves, followed by a (slow) epic/heavy doomy feel towards the song, before breaking loose with this energetic progressive rock that ends with a saxophone jazzy doom metal/bluesy-hard rock ending
We want to give a shoutout to Scarecrow for letting us review their second album, Scarecrow II . Now, we’re going to wrap it up by talking about the final three sins and concluding the review.
The Last Three Sins
Let’s discuss the last three sins, our thoughts on Scarecrow and their second studio album, Scarecrow II.
The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia: Is that for us, The whole music gives me goosebumps with its top-notch production and tight performance in one package with the extremely high replay value of an energetic, vibrant, and timeless time machine from start to finish.
The Sixth Sin, The Artwork:
The album artwork is captivating. Looking Upon the Ocean, it makes one feel like escaping into a dream world while listening to music.
The Seventh Sin, Disrelish:
Nothing to disrelish within the musical spectrum of Scarecrow, and their second album, Scarecrow II.
This concludes the Scarecrow, Scarecrow II review.
Track-Listing:
- The Endless Ocean Overture
- Blizzard
- Magic Flower
- Spirit Seducer
- The Moors
- The Mushroom Wizard
- The Golden Times
- The Endless Ocean
Scarecrow is:
- Artemis – vocals, harmonica, flute
- Elijah – bass
- Vadim – drums
- Den – guitar
- Mixed and Mastered by Samuel Turbitt at Ritual Sound, Darlington (North East), UK ↩︎
