cleopatrick - Scrap (2025) [Hi-Res]

The Skinny: Look, I think the interlude is a lost art form, and when done well, it can work wonders for an album. After all, an album is a body of work, and if you can merge songs together more effectively and apply an all-encompassing sense to the record with some 30-second segments here and there, why not do it? However, Cleopatrick takes it too far on the new album SCRAP, which is a record that seems to focus so much on filler that it forgets good songs should also be included where possible.

The album opens with the promise of guitar music, and that’s exactly what you get. On every single song, there is no escaping the fact that the guitar is what stands at the centre of absolutely everything. Credit where credit is due, some of the guitar work on this album sounds pretty damn stellar.

One moment that springs to mind is the outro on the track ‘GUTS’, which almost evokes feelings of Black Sabbath. The domm-adjacent hard-hitting domination of a six-string is a lot of fun to listen to, but it’s only one of the few standout moments on an album that, for the most part, warrants nothing more than a background listen.

The guitar that these songs are centred around stays within the confines of a very specific style and tone. That’s fine if done right, but on this album, that small variation means that the songs begin to somewhat overlap. If not for the many interludes which are littered in between songs, it would be hard to tell when one ends and another begins, not because they flow into one another, but because they sound like carbon copies.

Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad were other instruments and elements throughout this album given a moment of their own, but the guitar is so prominent and in your face that it’s hard to escape it. The rhythm section may as well not be there half the time, as it sits in the background peering over a guitarist’s shoulder, asking if it will get a chance to play soon (it never does).