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StarGazer > The Scream That Tore the Sky > Reviews
StarGazer - The Scream That Tore the Sky

StarGazer - The Scream That Tore the Sky - 90%

chrisc7249, July 28th, 2021

Now, a fair amount of seasoned death metal fans know of StarGazer, but even still, I very rarely see bands pay homage to them in their "FFO sections," and it seems like a lot of fellow reviewers fail to mention them when citing obvious influences in newer bands like Blood Incantation or Ulthar. This is absolutely perplexing to me, because, indeed, StarGazer has had a massive influence on a lot of these modern death/black outfits we've seen emerge in the past 6-8 years. Their ferocious blend of death, black, and thrash with good amounts of melodic, progressive elements and heavy dissonance is often followed to this day. And, those who do know of this band rarely have anything negative to say. It seems this album achieves love all around from people who have listened to it. But I never quite hear people comment on just how "ahead of its time" it was.

StarGazer is an amalgamation of different sounds blended into a surprisingly neat package. It features influences from Death, The Chasm, Atheist, Gorguts, Morbid Angel and plenty more with a healthy dash of black and thrash metal. Of course, with the aforementioned palate of bands being brought up, it should come as no surprise that this album is fairly technically proficient. Damon Good and Denny Blake put on a show on this album, handling guitar, bass, drum and vocal duties between the two of them. Now, I do say this often and take it with a grain of salt because my favorite genre of music is technical death metal, but this is not your average technical death metal wankery on display here. Rather, the technicality is infused with the thrashing blackened death madness to create a sonic whirlwind of explosive musical wizardry and unforgiving brutality. No stupid noodling and "whoa dude, play that as fast as possible" bullshit on here. It's extremely melodic, but not in the sense that it sounds like In Flames (yuck!) I almost get a sense of Mi'gauss type melodicism in this, in the sense that it's true traditional heavy metal fused into tech death.

The bass and drumming on this album is brilliant. Both are mixed in well, with the bass being surprisingly audible and it adds a completely new dimension to the album. I'm still not aware of whether it's a fretless or not, because I am extremely stupid and not good with music (why are you even reading this anyway? My opinions suck!), but either way, I fucking love the way it's played. It acts as the lead guitar at times and plays a lot of intriguing melodies. The drumming is far from standard, it's very technical and explosive and helps bind the frantic riffs together seamlessly. And the riffs and melodies from the guitars are ones worth noting. Very rarely do bands have the capability to cram this many good melodies and riffs into just one album, but StarGazer achieves it with ease. The vocals, on the other hand, actually aren't that boring. Are they the greatest ever? Far from it. But they utilize both highs and lows and, while they rarely have ever a catchy structure, are still memorable and aren't just background noise - at least not all of the time.

I would recommend this to really any fans of death metal that don't mind some technicality. It really is fucking catchy and filled with a lot of great songs. Even the interludes have one or two good parts, which is absolutely shocking to hear because interludes are the single worst thing in music. Perhaps it's not the heaviest of albums, but it sure is spastic and, for the time, pretty damn original, and its influences can still be heard to this day in a number of bands. StarGazer is actually still around and has put out albums, even one this year as I am writing this, but I just actually haven't invested the time into listening to any of them just yet. I'm probably doing myself a disservice - if they're any bit as good as this one, they are most certainly worth listening to. Uncompromisingly ferocious, and worthy of a few listens.

FFO: The Chasm, Atheist, Death
Favorite song: The Scream That Tore the Sky
Final score: 9/10

Magickal - 90%

robotniq, September 17th, 2019

There are many black/death metal hybrid bands out there, most of them cherry picking their favourite cliches from either genre (with predictable results). StarGazer’s debut album shows what happens when a talented band straddles this divide. They’re not content with following the standard ‘blackened death metal’ template, they want to combine the most challenging, experimental and technically demanding elements of both. This is where progressive/technical death metal meets avant-garde black metal. It is about as ambitious as extreme metal gets.

Instrumental opener ‘...Of the Sun’ is the perfect taster for what is to come. It races out with ultra-fast thrash riffs similar to what you might find on a record like ‘Illusions/Chemical Exposure’ (complete with virtuoso Digiorgio-esque bass playing). After about a minute it progresses into melodic, jazzy territory. StarGazer build on this formula over the next three tracks. The speed and aggression dominates, reaching near grindcore levels on ‘Insomniate Vortex’.

The real heart of the album is the pair of longer songs in the middle; ‘Ye Olde Magicks’ and ‘Pale Brethren’. The band slows down, time signatures become more complex and staccato, and the crossover between death metal and black metal is pushed into uncharted waters. ‘Ye Olde Magicks’ is the longest song on the album, driven forward by fluid, bouncing bass riffs. The echo-laden middle section is a clear reminder of avant-garde Norwegian second-wave black metal (i.e., Ved Buens Ende). ‘Pale Brethren’ is as tight and contorted as anything I've heard, pushing further than even Atheist did on their “Unquestionable Presence” masterpiece. There is one moment at around 3:16 which encapsulates StarGazer’s approach. The guitarist plays a manic solo lasting about five seconds, retreats behind a drum fill, the band locks into a ferocious groove before the guitarist blasts out another solo lasting about six seconds. StarGazer are masters of confined musical space. This is music where the complexity and technicality magnifies the intensity (like Watchtower or Atheist). The guitarist’s subservience to musical structure makes this the antithesis of ‘guitar wankery’ bands (like Necrophagist).

The other vital element of this record is the production. The clarity of the instruments binds everything together. The bass and drums have space to breathe and the guitar is far less distorted than a typical extreme metal record, the vocals are slightly lower in the mix than you might expect. This is doesn’t really sound like a ‘metal’ production at all. It sounds like the impeccable (but soulful) production of a band like Don Caballero, or perhaps jazz fusion bands like early Weather Report and Return to Forever. The sound is unique and timeless, giving StarGazer the freedom to weld long-established metal sub-genres together without compromising aesthetic purity.

An album this audacious would sound messy in less capable hands. StarGazer have the confidence, skill and vision to pull this off. “The Scream that Tore the Sky” is a groundbreaking record that reveals itself over repeated listens, and it may always sound ahead of its time.

A different kind of mysticism - 90%

Dark_Mewtwo1, September 7th, 2008

I fell in love with this band as soon as I gave this album a spin. Their brand of death metal is pretty refreshing, considering that much of today's releases feature completely sterile sounding instruments and hardly any feel for atmosphere or acoustics. This album is the opposite, providing the listener with a very strange atmosphere, mysterious and enticing, like you're listening to something not heard by human ears for centuries. While this premise isn't really groundbreaking, Stargazer's technical and melodic style fuses perfectly with the production, adding up to quite a satisfying listen.

And yes, the production is possibly the most important part of this record. It enhances the instruments, allowing each musician's voice to stand out on their own, but also blend together to give the songs a strong sense of continuity, flow if you will. The bass lines weave in and out, beautifully crafted low-end melodies that provide depth under the murky, swamp-like sound of the guitars, but also stand on their own to add another layer of melodies and riffs. The drumming has a very organic feel, warm and colorful, which leads me to believe the drummer is more jazz inclined. The guitars are surprisingly melodic, crafting some impressive sonicscapes that many debuting bands lack. I guess its a testament to what 10+ years without an album can do for a band.

All this wouldn't matter if the music was subpar, but fortunately, its quite the opposite. ...Of the Sun sets the tone for the rest of the album, providing strong and melodic, yet technically proficient riffs that flow seamlessly from one to the next. Tongues' basslines provide an excellent segue to the mastery that is Scribe to the Forsaken Mother. The title track is probably one of the best death metal songs I've heard in some time, the twisting tremolo riffs and basslines providing an excellent contrast to the deep, cavernous growls and high pitched screams. And when all is said and done, the 50-odd minute run time doesn't seem to be as long as it is. Rare is the album that can hold your attention for so long, yet deliver an amazing listening experience throughout.

I find very little wrong with this record, its a well-crafted, well-executed opus that showcases some of the best songwriting death metal has seen in a long time. Do yourself a favor and pick this up.

Synesthetic metal - 96%

Milo, November 8th, 2005

“The Scream that Tore the Sky” is Stargazer’s first full-length album in their career. I’ve found this when looking for some black metal released this year, with a twist of originality. The band is described as “avant-garde black/death metal”, but that doesn't really matter, this is just metal. And really good metal, I might add. Seriously, how often do you find an album that COMPELS you to write about it?

TSTTTS indeed has traits of the above mentioned genres, but in a broad sense, because although it has complex structures (death) and is able of conveying atmosphere (black), it doesn't sound anything like your average "tech deth" effort or like your everyday Emperor worship. Stargazer totally dilute the standards for black and death metal in a way that makes it pretty hard to compare the album with anything else. Sometimes, you may stumble on a riff that might be in a melodic black metal song, or associate the drum performance (very powerful) with some DM bands, but the album has a different feel.

What makes TSTTTS different is the feel it emanates. It doesn't sound "evil", or "cold", but instead, the melodies sound organic and sometimes even uplifting. I might compare this effort with “Elvenefris” because of that concept of “power and beauty”. Like in that album, some segments are very vivid, helping to develop convincingly the myriad of situations the band wants to describe with their music.

It doesn’t rely only on melody. TSTTTS has also heaviness and really competent rhythm section. Stargazer wrote huge cascades of memorable riffs that are really efficient at creating sonic waves that can really carry you to the many places in this album. The bass is in the forefront, adding muscle to every note played by the guitars.You can also experiment the almost tactile sensation it gives to the more melodic moments. “Tongues” is the perfect example. If you listen with attention, if you…feel the song, your body will be floating in the air for some seconds. I got to admit, I used to think bass wasn't really necessary in metal, but after listening to this, I could realize how important it can be, and how it can add another dimension to metal. Here, this instrument empowers the guitars and adds ambience to the music.

Chaotic, volumous drums violate everything on sight. “The Zelator” (drummer) seems to improvise a lot, with lots of interesting fills and rolls. But don't think of "improvisation" as a synonym for "random", because everything fits perfectly, no matter how busy and participative the drumming is. The style is not leashed, like in many death metal albums (steady 999bpm blasting, fill, steady 999bpm blasting, hi Krisiun!), but the drummer feels free to add a lot of ideas, which makes this album sound more freewheeling, which is always good.

Nice production job also deserves all the praise for capturing the band’s intent with TSTTTS. The overall sound is crystal-clear and the guitars are distinct. The bass and the drums take a lot of advantage of that. They weren't afraid of giving the bass more volume, which is no problem at all, since the instrument isn't used to play annoying, anticlimatic "funky bass lines", which seem to be all the rage these days. A good deal of the sucess of the drumming can be credited to the great sound of the snare and the bass drums. Sometimes slight effects are used in the sparse vocals to make everything richer. The atmosphere is not nocturnal, but instead, it seems to express the landscape of a morning in a florest, kinda like Klabautamann's "Der Ort" and the aforementioned "Elvenefris". Peaceful.

I really like every track on this album, but my favorite is “Ye Old Magicks”, which starts with a great riff and during its 7:42 minutes, it slowly fades into a beautiful spiral of atmospheric melody and minimalist drumming. To me, this song represents the very idea of "atmospheric music", just like Air's "La Femme D'Argent", and is one of my favorite songs ever. “Viral Spears and Shades of Moonskin” has one of the few standard black metal sections of the album. All acoustic interludes are also important and memorable.

“The Scream that Tore the Sky” is very original, rich and rewarding. There are few albums that sound like this one. I’m safe to recommend it to anyone who likes music that’s innovative without being self-indulgent and stupid. To anyone who likes metal.

I will support Stargazer forever.