- New Shred Till You’re Dead Radio Show – April 8, 2022
- Coming Soon to MGTV YouTube Channel – March 28, 2022
- Nostalgic Look At Our Old YouTube Channel Trailer – June 12, 2021
‘Self Titled’
Review By Mike Richardson
Sonic Syndicate have been out of the spotlight for a while now, 2010’s ‘We Rule the Night’ had such a mixed response from fans and critics alike that it seems hard to avoid feeling that an eponymous release is something of a fresh start.
Opening track ‘Day of the Dead’ builds superbly and sounds something like Killswitch Engage or some recent Machine Head, this continues into the verse and the chorus delivers a pop-metal chorus with a nice hook. A great start to the album. Track 2 has a little more electronic flavour in the intro, and we see another pop-metal chorus in action, but nothing like as catchy as the first track.
Track 3 begins with an awesome metalcore intro, the chorus this time a little too poppy for my tastes. Track 4 is the superb ‘My Revenge’. Disjointed intro riffing, great mix of delivery in the vocals: clean, harsh and spoken, multi-layered and textured music: overall a great track.
Track 5 has an experimental feel and features a nice vocal performance by Speed from Soilwork, tracks 6 and 7 stay in the same ballpark, with a poppy and slightly experimental feel, this middle section of the album features choruses that sound vocally a lot like Papa Roach.
Track 8, ‘It Takes Me’ is a more ‘traditional’ approach for Sonic Syndicate material, and is also the track that the melodic chorus works best on, the contrast works so well, though track 9 is close and is also nicely heavy.
Track 10 had me thinking of Paradise Lost. No bad thing as far as I’m concerned but I suppose it depends on how you feel about Paradise Lost. Album closer is a really good, heavy track with a great and unusual use of keyboards, particularly in the intro.
Though sometimes a little too generic in some choruses, the album is good throughout, with 3 or 4 tracks standing out as great. If you’re a fan already, I think you’ll like it, if you were one of the fans disappointed by the previous album, this may well win you back. 7/10
Standout Track: ‘My Revenge’
Check ‘em out if you like: Killswitch Engage, early Avenged Sevenfold, Soilwork
01. Day Of The Dead
02. Black Hole Halo
03. Long Road Home
04. My Revenge
05. Before You Finally Break
06. Catching Fire
07. Unbreakable
08. It Takes Me
09. See What I See
10. So Addicted
11. The Flame That Changed The World