A Scribe Amidst The Lions: Tell
Zen Whisper Recordings
2006

Review #1: 8.5 out of 10

This has been one of the most refreshing albums I’ve heard in an extremely long time. A Scribe Amidst the Lions has included so many different sounds to invent one of the greatest collaborations any listener, with an ear for real music, would enjoy. The album

 Comfortable For You - My Entire Life Is A Lie
mixes up several similarities to Zeppelin, Modest Mouse, Muse, and Circa Survive. The 12-track album is filled with extremely piecy songs spewing with creativity and variety.

Every track on this album pulls apart from the one before it. Kristopher Towne (vocals) has an amazing voice with a style unlike anyone else. Towne is right up there with vocal genius Anthony Green (Circa Survive). The synthesizers used along side of the jagged guitar riffs make the listener float away with the music.

Track 12, “Lineage”, is one of the more settling songs on the album, where the strongest Muse reference is present. Track 2, “Muffled Bell”, is chopped up into several different pieces that take my breath away every time.

Every track is filled with a new story and a new sound to knock your socks off. For listeners who have been patiently waiting for something to intrigue your ears, your day has finally come. The first track, “[Negotiate] Lives Under Teeth” will consume you indefinitely. In this one song, they have tapped at least 5 familiar sounds that we know and love with adding uniqueness exactly where it need be.

Putting this band into a category was the only hard part. With comparisons to so many different sounds and tapping in on every single one of them at completely different times, has placed me in a pickle that I, honestly, don’t mind being in. A Scribe Amidst The Lions goes out to anyone interested in music that takes brains to distribute and those whom are tired of categories. I say blend them all if you really want to hear something worthwhile.            


- Melissa Wells

Review #2: 7.5 out of 10

When I asked for this review I had high hopes for this record, having heard the band compared to the likes of Yes and Rush, and while those hopes haven’t been let down, they haven’t been fully realized just yet. Let me explain.

I was pleased to hear something different coming out of our scene. These guys have some very interesting music, with complex individual parts adding up in ways that normally only bands like Hella and Mars Volta can pull off. At the same time, they manage to groove like Open Hand’s “You and Me” (which is totally underrated). All of this is good, but something doesn’t add up. They throw in section changes in an effort to shock the listener, but the only effect is that it causes one to ask, “Why did they just change sections?” Sure, some of them are pulled off smoothly enough, but it makes one wonder why they didn’t just make the new part into a new track, and comes off as a bit of a gimmick, and one that has been pulled perfectly by other bands (read: end of the first track on Fall of Troy’s “Doppelganger”).

Please don’t take this to mean that you shouldn’t give the record a listen. Aside from my own personal audio pet peeves (the cymbals sound thin, not enough mids in the guitar gain), there is a lot of good material on there. Right now, none of it screams “pick me” from the shelf that it shares with “De-loused in the Comatorium”, but as I understand, these guys have only been together a year or two, and developing the good material they’ve got into a cohesive sound takes a lot more time than that. With our support for this kind of music, I believe they will get there. Keep it up guys.
- Nick Norton

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