Pursuing The End - Symmetry Of Scorn

"You got your Swedish death metal in my Lacuna Coil!" - Prissy guy in frilly white shirt with tattoos.You know as long as I've been listening to and enjoying music of all sorts (going on five decades), it's taken an inordinate amount of time to understand about production and what it can do for a musician's efforts. As it turns out, it may make all the difference in more cases than not. Which brings us to Italy's Pursuing The End (PTE), and their debut studio album, Symmetry Of Scorn. First things first, I love this music. It's much easier in theory to take a given formula like melodic metalcore and weave in pop, electronica and symphonic elements, all fronted by a female singer.

I mean these guys aren't lacking in ambition. They know what they're after and they do it well, with songs that are tight, heavy and appropriately atmospheric - especially in their deft juxtaposition of [lead singer, Maria] Bonfanti's soothing mezzo-soprano and [vocalist, Giacomo] Benamati's gutteral assault (though he does good clean vocals too). My only real complaint has to do with the nature of complex music like this. Like progressive metal, there are a lot of layers going on sonically, and it takes a really good producer/engineer to make sure that everyone gets heard without it becoming muddy. While I thoroughly enjoyed this album, and look forward to hearing more from PTE, I had to tweak the EQ settings quite a bit to hear everything. Still, this is a great new band that's pushing the envelope in the right ways in an otherwise crowded subgenre.

The Bottom Line: If you're one of those people that wishes there was a little more Swedish death metal in your Lacuna Coil then you're likely going to want to check out Pursuing The End. If these guys can get a really great producer for their next album, I predict big things for them.

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