Там, где время молчит

Russia's Scartown did manage to squeeze out three albums before dissolving due to presumed lack of interest. And honestly, looking at their final effort Там, где время молчит, its not really a difficult concept to grasp. If I were forced, for whatever reason, to describe Russia's melodic death scene with a single band, Scartown wouldn't be a terrible exemplar. Middle of the road in just about ever regional aspect, yet containing all of what I enjoy about the scene - however fleeting these aspects might be. Sadly, main vocalist Stanislav Rybalkin died shortly after the band dissolved, certainly in the most Russian way possible (alcohol intoxication). Rest in peace, dude.

Anyway, the closest parallel I can draw to this album would be Sympuls-e's Разрушая преграды, due to the prevalence of clean vocals, utilized in a metalcore-esque manner - and to great effect at times. Scartown is markedly less technical than that band, forced to rely on thrashing discord to link the chains. The entire experience isn't nearly as atonal as that may imply, as there are a lot of vocal and synth melodies worth experiencing, like on the de facto opener "В плену свободы" and "21 грамм." Adzhigitov's cleans are in general rather whiny, but he has a good voice and the Russian language renders well in a melodic sense.

Там, где время молчит is just full of "almost there" moments when the guitars start to nail that ~2005 metalcore vibe, but I found too much of the record merely listenable background music despite being a competent, accessible strain of such. There is a spurious, chaotic feeling to the mix of vocal styles, and select moments are redolent of Finland's Chaos Injected, so Scartown aren't without enviable peers. And as usual, I found myself pining for more synths, which when they do appear, are used in that very regional, garish manner. Adzhigitov is credited as keyboardist, so punch the keys, for God's sake!

Там, где время молчит is melodic, relatively hook laden and without embarrassing moments of introspective failure, so it immediately passes muster. I like the album, certainly more than Scartown's debut, and give it a lukewarm recommendation to fans of modern melodic death with metalcore tendencies. Solid and dependable, if somewhat middling at times.