Sinergy - Suicide By My Side
Nuclear Blast - 2002
Reviewed by Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Nuclear Blast website.
Go to the Sinergy website.
Now, it wasn't all that long ago that yours truly was posting a bit of a tirade against melodic metal on this very website. It was getting boring, whinged I. Why was everyone so fascinated with bands who replaced sheer balls-out attitude with track after track of endless fret-wanking? What happened to anger, brutality, ATTITUDE?
Then Sinergy came along, punched me in the mouth, tied me up and left me, bloodied and bruised, in a ditch. Well, not literally, but that's what it felt like after I'd listened to this, their latest album.
I'd heard of Sinergy before, but never bothered checking them out. So, it was with a modicum of cynical interest that I slapped this in the CD player and began to listen. Obviously, the sample of singer Kimberley gobbing on the floor was the first thing to arouse my interest. The next thing was the sheer velocity of the track that followed. The intricate riffage of 'I Spit On Your Grave', coupled with Kimberley's powerful vocal delivery and the sheer attitude in the sound left me quite gobsmacked.
This continued throughout the entire album - track after track of fast, furious, balls-to-the-wall metal - 'Violated' pinned me to the wall with its defiant chorus and frankly astonishing guitar playing, while 'Written In Stone' provided me with a brief space to pause for breath during its melodic, pleasing, slow-paced acoustic introduction - but brief is the operative word, as almost immediately the song blasts into a metallic section which almost twice as battering because of the acoustic part that came before. And so it continues through the track, attack and decay, until the brilliant 'I refuse to stay here and continue to live through this lie' chorus and the following jaw-dropping solo.
You may have gathered by now that I quite like this album. After becoming gradually disillusioned with melodic metal in general, the crystal-clear production, inventive song-writing, instrumental virtuosity and undeniable passion captured in Sinergy's latest album has single-handedly restored my faith in the genre and has set the standard for which all melodic metal releases in future have to reach.
Get this album right away - trust me, you need it!
9/10
Nuclear Blast - 2002
Reviewed by Philip Whitehouse
Go to the Nuclear Blast website.
Go to the Sinergy website.
Now, it wasn't all that long ago that yours truly was posting a bit of a tirade against melodic metal on this very website. It was getting boring, whinged I. Why was everyone so fascinated with bands who replaced sheer balls-out attitude with track after track of endless fret-wanking? What happened to anger, brutality, ATTITUDE?
Then Sinergy came along, punched me in the mouth, tied me up and left me, bloodied and bruised, in a ditch. Well, not literally, but that's what it felt like after I'd listened to this, their latest album.
I'd heard of Sinergy before, but never bothered checking them out. So, it was with a modicum of cynical interest that I slapped this in the CD player and began to listen. Obviously, the sample of singer Kimberley gobbing on the floor was the first thing to arouse my interest. The next thing was the sheer velocity of the track that followed. The intricate riffage of 'I Spit On Your Grave', coupled with Kimberley's powerful vocal delivery and the sheer attitude in the sound left me quite gobsmacked.
This continued throughout the entire album - track after track of fast, furious, balls-to-the-wall metal - 'Violated' pinned me to the wall with its defiant chorus and frankly astonishing guitar playing, while 'Written In Stone' provided me with a brief space to pause for breath during its melodic, pleasing, slow-paced acoustic introduction - but brief is the operative word, as almost immediately the song blasts into a metallic section which almost twice as battering because of the acoustic part that came before. And so it continues through the track, attack and decay, until the brilliant 'I refuse to stay here and continue to live through this lie' chorus and the following jaw-dropping solo.
You may have gathered by now that I quite like this album. After becoming gradually disillusioned with melodic metal in general, the crystal-clear production, inventive song-writing, instrumental virtuosity and undeniable passion captured in Sinergy's latest album has single-handedly restored my faith in the genre and has set the standard for which all melodic metal releases in future have to reach.
Get this album right away - trust me, you need it!
9/10
