Embodyment

Item: The Narrow Scope Of Things
Author: Marco Povervest

The Narrow Scope Of Things

(2000)

Reviewed by Marco Povervest

Discogs Apple Music TIDAL Amazon Music Spotify YouTube Music

Label Solid State RecordsArt for the Ears2000

alternative metal emo metalcore post-hardcore

When I started the Art For The Ears radioshow in January 1999 Embodyment's Embrace The Eternal was the first CD of the Month release. You can understand that I was anxious to hear The Narrow. I was told that it is a different disc. A change of direction like the change it was for Brett Detar moving from Zao to The Juliana Theory. Now I listen to the CD I have to admit there's truth in that. This is not the extreme metalcore quintet I heard on Embrace. In fact, there's little left of that. The Narrow shows two faces of the band. There are songs with the hoarse growling like in Pendulum and Assembly Line Humans. Still it sounds not as brutal as on Embrace. The other face is the heavy emo/postcore sounds of songs like Winter Kiss and Prelude. Evident for this change is the new singer Sean Corbray who sings, instead of the screaming and growling of the old singer. He's got a soulful voice that almost sounds gently compared to the still heavy guitars. But the guitars are not as metallic as they used to be. You might regret it but I decided to listen to the CD open-minded. With this attitude you can hear just like me a lot of beauty. It sounds more mature in songwriting than before and there's still heaviness in the new-style songs. The song that's closest to old Embodyment is Ballad (!). Personally I think the old-style songs should have been on an EP sort of thing as tribute to the past since they go a different path nowadays. I liked the metallic riffs and the creativity as captured on Embrace but I do like the maturity in songwriting of the new songs too.