SCARS OF THE FLESH return! This American Blackened Death band was created in 2014, with two full-lengths under their belt, with their debut, released in 2017, "Harvest of Souls", followed by "Reaching into the Void" back in 2020, two years later, the band unleashed their third full-length debut release, "In Darkness Alone" released in November of 2022 via "Bonespill Recordings".

While discussing significant tracks was a bit of a challenge that the first five pieces are original recordings by "Scars of the Flesh", and the last five are cover tracks. Simultaneously, don't let "In Darkness Alone" put you off!-overall, the release has produced and delivered five solid pieces which bring the listener a dark melodic atmosphere and epic song structures with brutality, melody and sheer emotion.

The first track I would like to discuss is the six-minute dark and epic song "The Hooded One", which is the second track on the album, which opens with "Kobey Lange" opening the piece with a short (harsh) vocal introduction, following suit with an instrumental progression attack of the guitar, pounding drum strikes, and snarling/brutal growls -with the transition of dark flowing rhythms and rhythmic drum patterns through the piece. Hitting the final minute - the track closes with dark-warm rhythmic cord playing of the guitar. While the fifth track, "Mors Aeterna", is a three-minute darkly rhythm cord playing of the guitar -nothing more, nothing less -yet beautiful.

The final track I like to talk about next is the seven-minute third piece, "In Darkness Alone" how the track is composed with sweeping riffage of the guitar and piano setpiece creeps in like death itself -following suit with a progression instrumental and harsh growls/snarls. At the same time, the mood, atmosphere, tempo and aggression of the track seem to change (including the five pieces) convenient when needed in each piece. For the four cover tracks mentioned, I'm not going to discuss too much. In a way, they are good covers, not too bad, "In Darkness Alone" kind of hits the mark on the head with perfection with these originals.

In my opinion, "In Darkness Alone" is a good and solid release; the production in sound is perfect, loud, and brutal, while the craftsmanship and musicianship are well composed, including the inked lyrics/score of the music. At the same time, "In Darkness Alone" is an ideal release for its dark, brutal, emotional musical spectrum; while I wouldn't consider this a full-length, more of (sort-of a) EP release due to there being five pieces of original recordings by the band (mentioned above). In comparison, the last four pieces are cover songs. Personally, the two tracks that I fell in love with is the second track, "The Hooded One", how the song structure/music score is put together/composed, the dark inked lyrics, while the guitar and vocals are perfectly opaque -yet progressive - but somewhat poetic and the fifth track, "Mors Aeterna".<