Sisthema - The Fourth Discontinuity
Sanctuary Records - 2001
By Philip Whitehouse
You know, I've been waiting for this chance. Every CD I've been sent to review from Ultimate Metal so far, I have enjoyed. Every last CD has been a pleasurable listening experience in some small way, and my reviews have reflected this. However, this in itself became a burden in some way, as I really yearned for a chance to give a really bad review - an album that woud deservedly invoke my wrath and allow me to use all of my grasp of the English language to pull it to shreds. Enter Sisthema, stage right.
Sisthema, to put it bluntly, are terrible. Not just the toe-curlingly unbearable awfulness that most sub-standard bands are cursed with, but they in fact possess the indescribably frustrating and soul-crushingly horrific abominability that comes only from showing a single moment, a single spark, of what might have been.
That moment comes in the shape of the sixth song on the album, 'The x-stasy and the Eclipse of the Flesh'. Starting with a pleasing ambient, electronica-based soundscape, a laid-back, near-industrial drum-beat pounds a driving yet unobtrusive rhythm to what becomes gradually a sinister yet soothing musical plateau - almost the soundtrack to the opening credits to some high-budget sci-fi/horror movie.
Unfortunately, this track is sandwiched between nine other tracks of the most utterly reprehensible cyber-metal ever aborted onto CD. Sisthema, on the whole, sound like the mutated offspring of Fear Factory and Meshuggah, with every element of creativity, intelligence, knowledge of song structure and dynamics and everything else that goes into creating the kind of pleasurable listening experience I was alluding to earlier, thrown unceremoniously out of the window.
Guitarist Lucio Minghetti obviously worships at the altar of Dino Cazares, ripping off his furious palm muted pneumatic-drill style of guitar whilst managing to somehow rob it of its shredding power. Filippo Goni's drum kit rattles along much the same as Raymond Herrera's would in faster FF tracks, and provides a brief moment of relief from the musical quagmire before you realise that any death metal drummer could do far better.
Davide Solano's bass is almost indistinguishable in the mix, except for a couple of rare occasions when an admittedly cool bass riff comes rising from the ashes of another Cazares-cast-off riff, while Massimo Pirazzoli presides over all, pulling off his best Kidman-from-Meshuggah impression and spouting out incomprehensible lyrics taken directly from the confusing-techno-babble-for-cyber-metallers handbook.
Actually, all told, perhaps I'm not that grateful to Sisthema after all for providing me with the oppurtunity to finally write a damning review - after all, I had to sit through the whole damned album several times to reliably write it!
In summary, file under 'Don't even touch wearing a biohazard suit.'
2/10 - (Half a mark for the FF influence, half a mark for the Meshuggah influence, one mark for the brief moment of promise).
Sanctuary Records - 2001
By Philip Whitehouse
You know, I've been waiting for this chance. Every CD I've been sent to review from Ultimate Metal so far, I have enjoyed. Every last CD has been a pleasurable listening experience in some small way, and my reviews have reflected this. However, this in itself became a burden in some way, as I really yearned for a chance to give a really bad review - an album that woud deservedly invoke my wrath and allow me to use all of my grasp of the English language to pull it to shreds. Enter Sisthema, stage right.
Sisthema, to put it bluntly, are terrible. Not just the toe-curlingly unbearable awfulness that most sub-standard bands are cursed with, but they in fact possess the indescribably frustrating and soul-crushingly horrific abominability that comes only from showing a single moment, a single spark, of what might have been.
That moment comes in the shape of the sixth song on the album, 'The x-stasy and the Eclipse of the Flesh'. Starting with a pleasing ambient, electronica-based soundscape, a laid-back, near-industrial drum-beat pounds a driving yet unobtrusive rhythm to what becomes gradually a sinister yet soothing musical plateau - almost the soundtrack to the opening credits to some high-budget sci-fi/horror movie.
Unfortunately, this track is sandwiched between nine other tracks of the most utterly reprehensible cyber-metal ever aborted onto CD. Sisthema, on the whole, sound like the mutated offspring of Fear Factory and Meshuggah, with every element of creativity, intelligence, knowledge of song structure and dynamics and everything else that goes into creating the kind of pleasurable listening experience I was alluding to earlier, thrown unceremoniously out of the window.
Guitarist Lucio Minghetti obviously worships at the altar of Dino Cazares, ripping off his furious palm muted pneumatic-drill style of guitar whilst managing to somehow rob it of its shredding power. Filippo Goni's drum kit rattles along much the same as Raymond Herrera's would in faster FF tracks, and provides a brief moment of relief from the musical quagmire before you realise that any death metal drummer could do far better.
Davide Solano's bass is almost indistinguishable in the mix, except for a couple of rare occasions when an admittedly cool bass riff comes rising from the ashes of another Cazares-cast-off riff, while Massimo Pirazzoli presides over all, pulling off his best Kidman-from-Meshuggah impression and spouting out incomprehensible lyrics taken directly from the confusing-techno-babble-for-cyber-metallers handbook.
Actually, all told, perhaps I'm not that grateful to Sisthema after all for providing me with the oppurtunity to finally write a damning review - after all, I had to sit through the whole damned album several times to reliably write it!
In summary, file under 'Don't even touch wearing a biohazard suit.'
2/10 - (Half a mark for the FF influence, half a mark for the Meshuggah influence, one mark for the brief moment of promise).
