Well here’s a little bit of delightful news for the day. Yesterday evening the folks over at Scion A/V, the in-house record label of the Scion automotive brand, released a free six track Arsis EP titled Lepers Caress. While I’m not quite sure what the Lepers mentioned in the title of the new EP are Caressing, I gotta give the band a hand. After 2010′s abysmal Starve for the Devil, I was nearly ready to call it quits on this band, and while Lepers Caress isn’t an altogether return to form, it does see the band taking several steps in the right direction. Lepers Caress sees the band bringing in delicious noodley tech death riffs, and expertly mixing them into intricate melo-death rhythms that should appeal to fans of the band’s earlier catalog of work, as well as the five people who liked Starve for the Devil (our own Gunnar will be so stoked). While I would have liked to see a much more (for lack of a better word) “brutal” Arsis release, sadly I think the band is past that point in their career, but whatever, Lepers Caress is a great little diddy that should hold fans over until the band release their fifth full-length album Unwelcome.
And while I don’t know what spurred their interest in the metal scene, I sincerely hope that Scion A/V’s appeal and devotion to the community is paying off for them, because they’ve helped release some of the best EPs over the past few years, as well as numerous music videos and tours in support of big and small name metal bands, and I would love to see that trend continue. Nothing wrong with a little corporate love if the end result is some uncompromised metal releases, right? The fact that these releases are also free is just an added bonus. So thank you Scion A/V, we appreciate the love.
You can download the new Arsis EP, Lepers Caress, here. All you got to do is give them an email address and you’re good to go. And be sure to give Scion A/V a like on Facebook. They’ve more than earned it by now.
- EC
