Scale the Summit - Carving Desert Canyons Review

Posted by Michael Adler on 02.17.2009

The band that scaled a summit and came down a hill.

Scale the summit are a young (average age of 22) outfit out of Houston, TX, consisting of: Jordan Eberhardt on bass, Chris Latchford on eight string guitar, Pat Skeffington on drums and Travis Levrier on seven string guitar. Their newest progressive instrumental effort, Carving Desert Canyons, hits stores February 17th.

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Track List:
1. Bloom
2. Sargasso Sea
3. The Great Plains
4. Dunes
5. Age of the Tide
6. Glacial Planet
7. City in the Sky
8. Giants

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Let's get right to the point: this album is a semi-epic fail. The boys list Dream Theater as one of their biggest influences, and it's apparent. Like Dream Theater, they're very talented musicians with minimal artistic insight. What's worse is, that with a Dream Theater album you at least have James Labrie's lyrics (insipid, yes, but they're there) to give the songs some focus.

These songs have almost zero focus as they all sound way too similar, and the concept itself goes off the rails halfway through the album, not that it was there too strongly in the first place. Let's continue this review with the not unreasonable assumption that while listening to these songs, we should be taken away to a desert; traveling over its plains and topography via the music.

Epic fail: nothing about this album evokes the desert. The guitars alternate between some lush (thanks to the range of some extra strings...see, they use seven and eight string guitars: PROGRESSIVE!!!....but, since when is a desert remotely lush? Furthermore, progressive straight forward rock licks do not remind me of a desert at all. I think Africa, maybe the American southwest when I think desert...yet any sort of attempt at integrating some world tribal beats are absent.

It kicks off with "Bloom" as a short intro that pretty much defines the guitar driven, Dream Theater inspired sound. There's some traces of modern pop punk in there ala Good Charlotte, which is NOT good. This first track melds into "Sargasso Sea" which is not even remotely close to a desert. It's a large area of non circulating water in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean-the only Sea not surrounded by land so to speak. Arguably because of a higher salt contact and lack of current action, it's referred to as a dead zone, but it's not devoid of life, so it really isn't remotely close to being a desert...especially since it's FULL OF WATER! There's a slight improvement here from "Bloom" in that there's some thrashing guitar work here to make you perk up a bit from the stupor that begins to set in from listening to "Bloom". The next track on our failed journey is "The Great Plains" which is a little bit softer, but doesn't really evoke the idea of being on plains so much as sitting in a coffee house. I might like it more if it were called "The Great Starbucks".

The high point of the album is undoubtedly "Dunes" as the band finally gets into the groove a little bit here. It still doesn't particularly take me away to the desert, but there's some undulating guitar melodies here that are reminiscent of dunes; the song actually has some identifiable movements, and by the end of the song, you say to yourself alright, now we're getting somewhere...maybe I misjudged these guys....

....And then you have the rest of the album. There's just nothing here to really make you take notice. Again, they're technically gifted, but the music is just there. Worse, we have a concept album here, and yet after "Dunes" despite such lofty titles as "Age of the Tide" and "City in the Sky" (Did we carve the desert canyons already? It seems like we're done with the desert already.) the music goes nowhere. There's no grand ending either. The last song, "Giants". sounding exactly like the the last three-indistinct solos and boring riffs-and it just ends suddenly in a little buzz of guitars. It's an uninspired ending to an uninspired album

The 411: We have an instrumental album here with talented musicians and no direction. This album amounts to a boring, uninspired peace of drivel with one bright moment on "Dunes" Perhaps there's hope for these guys as they develop. They are young, but for the time being, avoid this album, and pick up some Satriani if you want some blistering guitar work.

Final Score:  4.0   [ Poor ]