If anything can be levied against the NWOTHM scene, it’s that a lot of the bands sound like safe pastiches of 80s metal acts. They can certainly play the material, but they don’t do a whole lot with it to really stand out. But every now and then, you find a band that plays this stuff with such conviction and sheer energy that it’s like we’re back in the 80s, even if the calendar reads 2024. But sometimes, you find a band that takes it even further than that! Not only do they make genuinely great music, but they wind up completely making it their own. The riffs seem ordinary, but their compositions are unmistakably weird. Then you have vocals that, instead of taking their cues from Udo or Halford, operate on their own wavelength, generating some rather idiosyncratic vocal lines. It’s just the kind of album that stands out on its own terms by marching to the beat of its own drum, and it winds up kicking ass just on the back of that.
Yet the more of the album you go through, the more deliberate it all feels. It’s like you get past some of the odder-seeming parts of the first few tracks and just learn to accept Sceptre on its own terms. Eventually, everything fits together like a glove, like it not only meant to go that way, but it’s the most natural way it could’ve gone too. Everything just flows ever so swimmingly, despite some unconventional elements here and there. In fact, they wind up working far more in their favor, as the leads and vocal rhythms are downright fucking hooky and the riffs are played with such conviction that its energy keeps the songs thoroughly engaging. Even the flat-out doom track, “Walls of Bone”, maintains its luster through the tag-team of the sheer wherewithal behind the playing and the oddly dour mood throughout being carried with gusto. So then you have faster tracks like most of the rest amounting to some real upbeat tracks with melodies catchier than the common cold and in the end, Sceptre ends up a rather intriguing album. A genuinely off-kilter affectation that separates it from the rank and file.
Black LP, including:
A3 poster, insert & download code.