The Safety Fire – Mouth Of
Swords
InsideOut, 2013
6/10
I’m having a hard
time wrapping my head around this one, and fail to quite see how this English
band lives up to the hype as the next progressive metal hope. There’s certainly
elements of bands like Karnivool and Cynic with more of a hardcore bent with
the occasional screaming vocals, but Mouth
Of Swords primarily consists of discordant, arpeggio- and scale-based
guitar noodling. It’s not in the vein of the old shred-fests you can find on
any Shrapnel album from the 80s, so the guitar work isn’t the self-indulgant
wanking you might expect. I’ve given this several listens over the last week
anticipating that the album would take some to sink in but it just hasn’t
happened. The guitar work bores me; there’s a lack of real riffs on which to
latch, and the scales just drift by like white noise after a while. There are
some interesting moments and song structures to the band’s credit, but not
enough to overcome my general feeling of boredom when listening. Boredom is
probably a bit harsh, but the album seems here and gone when I listen like
background music that neither offensive nor inspiring. Fans of experimental
hardcore are more apt to enjoy this; if you think of bands like Dream Theater
and Fates Warning as progressive metal then Mouth
Of Swords will likely disappoint you.
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