Austria's SCARGOD was formed in 2004 in Salzburg, releasing one full-length, "Sacreligious Symphonies", in 2014, prior to their latest outing "Stay In Track!", released June 16. The preliminary, visual impression of the album is good. The logo is cool and the artwork puts one in mind of Mechanical Poet, which it turns out isn't entirely misdirected. They have some stylistic similarities, but as you might guess from the name they're trying to be a bit more sinister. Oddly, the band I hear most reflected here is My Silent Wake, specifically the My Silent Wake from the first two albums, "Shadow of Sorrow" and "Anatomy of Melancholy" - one of the finest doom bands in the scene. They could certainly have stood to mimic the production of those albums more closely. The whole production is very muffled and shallow, which is a great way to utterly hamstring a band like this which is supposed to sound atmospheric. Rhythm overpowers the lead in a way that muffles it, destroying the piercing impact that a guitar solo should have in the first place.

SCARGOD also spared significant expense in the keyboard department, which might not have been a problem if they weren't central to the band. The effects are atrocious and often ruin the otherwise competent playing. "Mainstream Centipede" features the worst-sounding keyboard brass preset effect I've ever heard used in a metal song, or anywhere for that matter. On the song "The Inhumanity of the Tragedy of Being In the Sense of Infinity Means Nothing" there's a keyboard melody (buried at the bottom of the mix) that sounds like a cell phone alarm - and because it's so muffled you'd actually believe you were getting a call. There are also several points on the album where the bass and drums sound very suspiciously like presets.

There are a couple standout tracks. "Entrance to Subjugation" is a fun little opener, not very complex but showing the melodic intent of the band as well as the sort of lilting riffing they employ. "Code: Thou Shalt Kill" has a great beginning with a retro doom sensibility. As it goes on, you're reminded of underappreciated prog fixtures Futures End and treated to some danceable goth-ish rhythm in the verses. "Scars of God" is a fairly high-energy outing that takes a breath at 2:30 to return to some more doomy riffing.

Sadly, there could have been more. "Cognitive Dissonance" sees perhaps the band's best approximations of My Silent Wake, complete with echoing leads and a pretty good imitation of Ian Arkley's growl. "The Inhumanity of the Tragedy of Being In the Sense of Infinity Means Nothing" is a coherent, short doom-type track. It could be the best song on the album, since the melodies are long and the passages are changed enough in each iteration to make them noticeably different. That being said, at 3:20 an absolutely dreadful riff hits you like a riding crop to the gonads. It makes no sense, pulls the listener out of the atmosphere for 24 seconds and didn't need to be in the song. "Whores of Boundaries" sees the band begin to break through the production and try to deliver a soaring chorus, which they do serviceably. Unfortunately it's also the end of the album.

I've been harsh on the album, but only because it'd be fine (indeed, promising) were it not for the production. The vocals are excellent. There are a number of cool ideas here, and fundamentally Dr. Maze Pain can write a good riff and compose competently. It can get a little formulaic but for the most part is reasonably engaging.  The production issues are a pity considering a band like Dawn of Ashes can sound superficially awesome due to near-perfect production despite having about three good riffs in them. SCARGOD's previous album had much better production, but was also shorter on ideas. Two steps forward, one step back.