SYK : "Pyramiden"

 

The biggest strength of this Italian band is their vocalist, Dahlia Krayos. If they had opted for another male growler for what would have been a very grooving, take on progressive death metal, but at the end of the day would have sounded like everyone else. The first song hits you and is no different in its hand that it takes you by surprise, the second song you begin to get your bearing and hear what is going. The drummer is impressive, but really with this kind of music you have to be. The guitars could stand to groove more is the impression the second song begins to give me. Her melodies wander around the spinning labyrinth of riffs she is forced to work with and for the most part makes the best of what is going on here. Not a great deal of room for hooks.  

The mix is weird as it sounds, she is singing metal karaoke at times, her voice sounds separate from the blur of guitars churning under her by the time we get to 'the Hollow Mother". It begins to feel like they are more about this sound than the song. She needs more breathing room than the math of the guitar is yielding.  Aside from the opening track the rest of the songs are pretty reasonable lengths. The faster paced "Zoas" ,  the vocals gliding they have been for the bulk of the album just over a faster riff . There is a weird harmonic dissonance to it at times. When they slow back down , aside from being locked in the grinding machine like throb of Meshuggah, the vocals are given more room. The bass is kinda buried in all of this . The speed begin to vary , though the tones remain the same. 

Dizzying speeds once again factor in when we get to "When Fire Fell into Water".  It is dense with little to give in terms of being able to hook you in. The sentiment of the vocals is not as effective here as it feels like the formula in place is going to the well too many times. Musically things do not change a great deal on the last song, but the vocals find more purpose making the overall song work more as a whole. I will keep this band on my radar as I like what they do, I will give this album an 8 as what they do carries it on the sound, though for my regular listening would prefer the vocals given more focus in the songs. Out on Housecore Records.  

Under the Radar - SYK : " I​-​Optikon"

I needed to take a break from death metal and doom so I thought I would  check out this band that was in my in-box. This album flew totally under the radar as I heard nothing about this Italian band who released this album back in 2016 in Housecore Records. I guess since this is not normally their type of thing, they didn't know how to promote it. It is prog metal that owes much of their math injected riffs to Meshuggah. I guess that would make them djent, but since the vocals don't fall under the kind of Myspace metal I think of djent being, it would be hard to say they are just that. Aggressive female vocals that are more sung that screamed, or in the case of the title track that opens the album they are exclaimed in agonized anger. There is a lower frequency punch to "Sinomi" . It is even more angular than the opener. The chorus has a little more melody and hook to it.

While this formula works for the first two songs it feels a little busy on "Disintegrate". Like wise "Mud" never settles into enough of a groove for the vocals to safely land on. The one thing I like about this band is that they remind me of Karyn Crisis' old band ...Crisis.  By "Flesh Worms" the songs start running together for me. So I had to go back and give a second listen. They are great musicians, but the drummer could stand to find a groove here and there to make the angular parts have more impact. "Fong" is faster and more spastic. "Absense" might be the album's best song. "The White Sun" kinda becomes metal mush to my ears.

So despite my complaints about the jarring nature of some of the songs I think the over all listen is a lot of fun.So I think a 8 is pretty fair and takes into consideration that this is not normally my thing. I look forward to hearing more from this band, perhaps I'll catch them with Godflesh. If you are going to see Godflesh on one of their dates get there early to check them out. Since this album came out two years ago I would expect them to have a new one out soon.