2006-03-02
Sonic Syndicate actually managed to impress me, this band, hailing from Sweden, has an average member age of about 20, and yet, this, their debut album, is one of the finer sounding Melodic Death metal albums I've heard in recent years.
They don’t venture too far from known pastures, the music is a combination of later
In Flames material with some current
Soilwork thrown in for good measure, but its all done so maturely, so well-put, that it certainly strikes you as the work of a much older and wiser band.
The band actually treads the fine limit between death metal and metalcore in certain points, their image and some of the clean vocals sound quite metalcore, but the guitar riffs and energetic drumming are heavy enough to be death metal, but that is to be expected, as both In Flames and Soilwork are currently described as walking that fine line as well.
The album starts off well enough, it’s built out of three main segments, divided into shorter tracks; the opener, “Jailbreak” (It's NOT a Thin Lizzy cover) puts things into prospective, hard-edged melodic death metal with a smart use of keyboards.
The sound on the album is very well done, it sounds like something done by Fredrik Nordstrom, meaning – a very clear and crisp Swedish sounding production.
Things really hit their stride after that, with the addition of some fine female vocals courtesy of the bassist/vocliast Karin, she, like the keyboards, adds another dimension to the music.
There's nothing really new here, the band took its queue from other fine death metal bands, and just did their version of it, but their version is quite stunning, very professional sounding, and a pleasure to listen to; I predict that the band will be better known in a very short time, they deserve it.
Alon Miasnikov
