I stood on my porch stupefied and temporarily stunted. An ominous afternoon. I found myself squinting from the pressure of the resilient sun. Succumbing to its will I let my eyes fall in futility. The package in my hand? I cracked the envelope seal and pulled the CD case out. “Scanners”? Any relation to the cartoon? No. Aesthetically perhaps.
I found myself lost in the sinuous lines of the face portrayed on the cover. Blood red tears raced in between the crevices on her face. Accentuating her melancholy features. This pencil-etched image spoke silent paragraphs about the album; it’s a dark-mysterious-sexy-sad mixture of sounds that create a quality and state of being that engulf the listener…
The range of sounds produced, and the range of songs written exemplifies the band’s versatile style and skills composing tracks (using various instruments, outside the conventional rock-band set-up). The production work of Matthew Mole (almost) acts as it’s own instrument (at times), never out-shining the musicians but always making the sound and mix carry the song(s) further.
Scanners is straight-ahead rock that moves between stage-dive worthy tracks to wrist slitting epitaphs about life. Even when a song rhythmically bounces with a poppy sound, the band retains a grimy feel. The album moves like an elegant nightmare. Drifting between waking and sleeping, living and dying; the ebb and flow of life is captured with acute (in)accuracy. Violence Is Golden is an artistically crafty debut album for Scanners, both visually, lyrically and musically.
Scanners
Dim Mak
“Lowlife” MP3
by Kevin Farr
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