The Local Groove by Dan Clark Something Heavier

I first met the founding members of Sacred Serenity in 2009 when they came up to Kutztown to visit a friend of theirs. After meeting and hanging out with them for one night, I knew they would find a way to carve a name for themselves in the local music scene.

Sacred Serenity started in 2008 with Nate Parker playing guitar and Pat Scanlon screaming into a microphone. Together, along with the help of Nate’s stepbrother and a friend who recorded drums, they created Enemy in the Clouds, which has my favorite Sacred Serenity song of all time “Death in Solitude.”

Since the Enemy in the Clouds EP, they have recorded three EP’s with the last two being recorded at the locally famous Atrium Audio in Lancaster. Atrium Audio is known for recording bands like August Burns Red, The Last Ten Seconds of Life and This or The Apocalypse.

No matter where they record, the song structure is never the same and makes each song unique and exciting to listen to. Parker writes guitar riffs with all of his influences in mind. Anything ranging from melodic death metal to pop-punk and even to classical guitar can be heard in Sacred Serenity songs.

Another aspect of Sacred Serenity that has always impressed me is the bass playing. Despite original bassist Dave Jaminson leaving right before the recording of Synapse, Nate Parker still made the bass shine through on the record. To fill the gap, bassist Jessie Winters plays wonderfully live and is incredibly technical. He also brings clean vocals to their live show which may be difficult for Parker to perform because of how quickly and technically sound he is playing the guitar. The bass parts have always been incredible considering that the genre Sacred Serenity is looped in does not do much with bass. I remember on their first EP, Enemy in the Clouds, there were a few songs where the bass had a solo on top of the guitars. When I hear a bass solo, it is usually played by itself with no other instruments or when there is another instrument it’s the drums. But to hear a bass solo over a rhythm guitar is not something that metal listeners hear on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, Sacred Serenity have taken the past few months off from live shows due to their drummer having wrist surgery, however they are back on the rise and I can imagine that whatever they come up with after a few months off will be even faster and much more technical than anything they have ever done before. Their latest EP, Synapse, can be found on iTunes and before long they’ll be back.

Dan Clark is an intern for Berks-Mont Newspapers.