In the late-1990’s metal started showing signs of waking up from its long, counterproductive slumber and quickly began to catch up with the rest of the music world with both old veterans and new acts rushing to compensate for the years of relative inactivity. The influence of then extinct bands was really big on the young upstarts who avidly borrowed from the available heritage many not even trying to disguise it with something of their own. The technical thrash/death blend experienced a few more or less forgivable flops (remember Invocator’s “Dying to Live” (1995), No Return's "Seasons of Soul" (1995), and Mercyless' "C.O.L.D." (1996)) during the decade, but it also saw the return of the giants Sadus to lead this sub-genre through the upcoming resurrection period. It was going to be an ungrateful task for Steve DiGiorgio and Co. provided that behemoths like Atheist, Pestilence, and Messiah had apparently laid down the weapons for good; while others still moving (Loudblast, Merciless, the Poles Dragon) were becoming less and less interested in playing technical music.
The small Czech Republic has never been the most prominent place for metal, but the more initiated should know the intelligent progressive power/thrashers Asmodeus whose diverse melodic opuses have been served on a more or less regular basis since the early-90’s. It’s only the most dedicated metal scholars who would recall three other names: Assesor whose debut "Invaze" (1990) was a rough unpolished version of Atheist's "Piece of Time", cleverly-constructed, but quite intense, technical thrash/death at its primal best (the band are back together and their sophomore release "Stvanice" (2012) is another standout piece of complex thrash/death hybridization); the more linear and orthodox Crionic and their excellent debut “Different” (1993); and Chirurgia, one of the most original and forward-thinking acts of the decade their debut “The Last Door” (1993) one of the finest progressive thrash/death metal releases ever; their sophomore effort “Deep Silence” (2002) is a varied, eclectic affair which is still by all means worth checking out.
So we roll forward to 1997 and see the birth of the most consistent technical/progressive metal outfit from the small country: Landscape… sorry, Scenery. Not much of a pedigree for the combo except for the vocalist Petr Stejskal who arrived from the one-album-wonder Section Brain (“Hospital of Death”, 1993 again; what a year for metal this one was, wasn’t it?!). However, their thin resumes were not an obstacle for the guys to produce one of the most impressive debuts in the field, and to show how technical and progressive death/thrash metal could be combined in a way no worse than Atheist and Death. Once the opener “After Life Before Life” starts weaving these serpentine Coroner-esque riffs out of thin air the listener will cast his/her daily chores aside and will concentrate on the musical sceneries to follow. This same opener thrashes quite wildly at some point with thundering bass heard in the background plus a beautiful quiet lead-driven exit. The overall approach is closer to thrash throughout the album, and the band are experts at blending hard-hitting headbanging sections with twisted complex ones on each composition; sometimes great melodic leads (“Why Won’t You Listen to Me?”) take the upper hand; at others more engaging progressive numbers (the title-track) ala Death dominate the landscape; at others technical wizardry (“My God is Dead”) will boggle the listener’s mind stitching together impossibly elaborate riff-patterns by putting together Coroner again, Deathrow, and Realm all into one big melting pot.
The band tear it loose, all in a good way, on the raging speedster “Slave to Dreams” which pours steel cutting shreds in quick, hectic succession in the best tradition of Atheist, the leads again playing the role of the more melodic mediator. The shadow of the aforementioned American masters is probably bigger on the closing “Crown of Thorns” which also gives a chance to the bassist to reveal his talents to the fullest, and the man indeed acquits himself no worse than Mr. Steve DiGiorgio, dueling with the guitar players for domination, the battle split in the middle by a beautiful quiet interlude. And that’s it, a bit over half an hour of standout musicianship, another possible nod to Atheist as the latter were also never interested in keeping the fan glued to the player for ages.
Technical death metal was in a serious crisis in terms of new forces’ emergence, and although the usual suspects (Death, Suffocation, Cryptopsy, Gorguts) were all up and running, more or less regularly, there were hardly any young upstarts to join the waning legions of this sub-genre. Scenery caused a wave of resurgence in Europe with this debut, the same time when Martyr caused a similar one on the other side of the Atlantic with the hopeful “Hopeless Hopes”. On the thrash metal side things looked a bit better, at least in Europe, with the appearance of the Germans Mind-Ashes’ “The Views Obscured” and the Danes Unleashed Power’s “Mindfailure” (both released in 1997). The French Droys struck with “And If…” a year later, followed by the legendary Necrophagist debut in 1999, and another obscure but utterly essential technical metal act, Sore Plexus (Germany) whose full-length “Haptephobic” (1999) was another immaculate display of very technical, progressive, mathematical thrash. The list goes on and on…
so Scenery did a pioneering job back in those days to wake up the dormant spirit of the genre although they only sporadically released albums throughout the years making healthy 4/6 year gaps between them. Obviously, like with most of the big musical talents of recent times, music wasn’t their full-time occupation and they had to give their toll to the cruel reality. Their debut, however, remains their most aggressive offspring so far; the follow-up “Philosophy of Ages…” (2002) concentrated more on the more laid-back progressive side of their delivery, and the fast-paced headbanging moments were almost completely gone. They came back to an extent on “Continuity” (2006) which was a pleasing mixture of its two predecessors thus satisfying a wider gamut of fans.
The band made a major step forward with their latest effort “Mental Confusion” (2012) which is a grandiose progressive thrash/death metal opera, a beautiful surreal opus with atmospheric build-ups and amazing complex riff-patterns. The up-tempo passages are gone again, but this offering is so stunningly wоven that one would hardly care too much about them. Its ephemeral spacey nature binds it with other similar great works, like Disaffected’s “Rebirth” (2012), Beheaded Zombie’s “Happiness for All” (2009), and Serdce’s “The Alchemy of Harmony” (2009) which tried to push the genre towards more melodic, more “beautiful” territories. Well, death metal can only get handsome that far, and hopefully the future cosmetic alterations that are in stall won’t make our favourite genre into a major cause for millions of fans’ mental confusion.
Official promo video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anWadOIqh-0
Sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SI7t1Sct5g
