Scale The Summit Title: Carving Desert Canyons Label: Prosthetic Records Year: 2009 Rating: 3.5 / 5

Arpeggios, Scales, Variations, Hard Rock, Sweeps, Chops, Groove, Shred, Melodies, Thumps, Ambitious, Hammer-Ons, More Sweeps, Metal, Progressive, Technical, and Unique Perspective, make this band definitely one of a kind. Carving Desert Canyons is an album that has amassed the technical beauty of progressive metal in an instrumental album format. The 8-song opus churns out melodies like hot cakes and serves fresh baked compositions. The song arrangements speak for themselves as it lines between technical mastery and sonic interludes. “Glacial Planet” takes the sound to new heights making it the definite blood line of this album. Thought provoking “The Great Plains” is a nice bonus feature that has great shifts within the mold. The variations and contrast that Scale The Summit provide would most likely sound real great with a singer, but the band choses to stay instrumental, which is probably the best idea-considering the fact that with a singer, they would have to compromise their sound and style, which would then be a bad idea. A notable mention does have to go out to the album cover which totally captures a vivid imagination of Scale The Summit, good job. It was hard to imagine at first why there is only 8 songs on this album but after a spin, it was evident that this album is something different. Pick up a copy for yourself and peep the sound scapes!

By: Gian Erguiza