Review: Scarcity – The Promise Of Rain
When I first heard “In The Basin Of Alkaline Grief,” the opening track from The Promise Of Rain, I was struck immediately by how it differentiates itself from Scarcity‘s debut record Aveilut—an album defined by minimalist, layered composition and truly oppressive production—by exploding into life with a shrill, persistent ostinato introduction accented by these really bright staccato notes that feel like distorted, sharp sine waves. It’s such a radical departure to go from something so enveloping and crushing to something that’s so treble-y and off-putting. It’s a track that manages to incorporate that repellent/attraction dynamic I hear in, like, an intense beat bruxaria song or something—like a Liturgy collaboration with DJ Talala.
The new direction is perhaps largely a result of the recording process shifting from densely layered production and an almost sedimentary forcefulness to tracks that were recorded in “one or two takes, capturing the physical effort and urgency of a live performance.” This thinking informs most of the album; in comparison to Aveilut, an album composed in the peak of covid lockdown and so carried an air of isolation and withdrawal, The Promise Of Rain feels much more immediate and present. Despite how repellent its sound can be, the circumstances of its recording imbue it with a relative warmth and humanity. That the album’s lyrics were inspired by vocalist Doug Moore‘s experiences traveling through Utah and its deserts doubly highlights the more naturalistic, “real” sound of the album. Not to get all fucking Eugene Thacker but if Aveilut was the world-without-us, then The Promise Of Rain is the world-in-itself.
Aveilut was my metal album of 2022, an album that felt so considered and precise in every element of its recording. The Promise Of Rain sees the addition of bassist Tristan Kasten-Krause alongside drummer Lev Weinstein and guitarist Dylan Dilelia, the addition of whom imbues the project with their combined pedigree of avant-garde performance—Alvin Lucier, Steve Reich—and metal—Krallice, Pyrrhon. The Promise Of Rain sees Scarcity toeing the line between the two perhaps more than ever.
“Scorched Vision” has a main riff that feels as inspired by classical minimalism as it does a lot of 2000s hardcore and skramz, all performed with very little attention paid to the low-end. It’s the sort of skittish instrumentation threatening to upend itself that you’d hear on the first Circle Takes The Square record. The longest track on The Promise Of Rain, it has a heavily segmented nature that doesn’t especially emphasize the album’s focus on live, low-take recording, but does feel suitably ambitious and large-scale. Despite its tempo, it’s a slow-burner, a track that still taps into a droning atmosphere through sheer mounting repetition, where the distorted, wild instrumentation blurs into a haze of thick, acrid phrasing before finishing on a melancholic, slower outro that acts as a disquieting epilogue.
“Subduction” follows from “Scorched Visions'” outro, feeling like faint embers trying to relight a fire. It’s the shortest track, and while it feels like it’s cut short arbitrarily, to my ears it’s the song that most succinctly captures the appeal of Scarcity, underlining their ambitious melding of black metal and the contemporary avant-garde that feels distinctly modern—post-minimalist metal that burns on contact.
“Undertow” is defined by its alternating two-note, shrill guitar melodies that manages to at once remind me of mathcore like Coalesce while also being reminiscent of the rhythmic identity of an old Swans record—the distance between, say, “A Screw (Holy Money)” and “Undertow” isn’t as far as it’d seem. It also emphasizes the literal industrial feeling found in trace amounts on the rest of the record: the high-low arpeggios sounding like reversing machinery, the blistering vocals burning like foundry heat.
“Venom & Cadmium” is perhaps the record at its most conventional, and to me is the only part of the album that feels inessential, though it has some major vocal highlights in its second half. I think my reticence towards it comes less from its quality (it’s still a pretty solid track) so much as it just doesn’t feel in-step with the rest of the album thematically or atmospherically. To me it feels much more like a mid-era Krallice track, though that might just be confirmation bias on my part due to Lev Weinstein’s contributions.
Title track “The Promise Of Rain” closes the album, bookending the beginning and end of the album with bright, almost burning explosions of black metal whose tremelo-picked dueling guitar arpeggios suck all of the other instrumentation into its vortex. The song truly comes into its own in the latter half, combining high-tempo shredding with these staccato, sudden breaks before immediately erupting again. The track is another that ends with a fading, atmospheric haze, giving the impression of an aftermath of destruction, like a smouldering horizon after a forest fire.
Much was made of Aveilut’s pronounced Glenn Branca influence—unsurprising given Brendon Randall-Myers role in the Glenn Branca Ensemble—but The Promise Of Rain feels like a deliberate step away from that sound. It’s an album that is much more cathartic and more personal, one inspired less by grief and more by life. I couldn’t say it’s a positive record, and at times is downright hateful in its delivery, but The Promise Of Rain is a fucking powerful, affirming record. It continues to establish Scarcity as one of the most interesting acts in metal, and is one of the best records of 2024.
4/5 Flaming Toilets ov Hell
The Promise Of Rain is out now on The Flenser.
