Andy Synn, Author at NO CLEAN SINGING

Andy Synn

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (BUT SHOULDN’T)

Aug 052024

(Andy Synn presents four albums from July which may have passed you by)

So apparently it’s August already? How the hell did that happen?!?

And spare me your scientific hocus-pocus about “the linear passage of time” and “the direction of entropy”… all I know is that it was just yesterday I was doing one of these “Things You May Have Missed” columns for June, and someone needs to answer for where all that time in between went.

Now, I know that there were some people who felt like July was a bit of an “off” month – both in terms of quantity and quality – but I’m here to tell you that those people are fools and not to be trusted.

Heck, I could have done an entire separate piece on “Black Metal You May Have Missed” (in fact, I did just that last week) and the number of artists/albums which ended up on the proverbial “cutting room floor” this month was enough to cause me almost physical pain.

Still, I think you’ll enjoy the four records I’ve selected for this month’s article, which cover a pretty decent spread of styles/genres, meaning there should be something for almost everyone.

THE SYNN REPORT (PART 173): RESPIRE

THE SYNN REPORT 1 Response »

Aug 022024

Recommended for fans of: Envy, Alcest, Mono

This edition of The Synn Report may be a few days late, but since I’ve been waiting a long time to write about this particular band – ever since I first stumbled across their fantastic third album, Black Line, in early 2021, in fact – what’s a few days more?

Blending influences from Post-Hardcore (Envy, Refused, Pg.99), Post-Rock (Mono, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), and Post-Black Metal (Alcest, Deafheaven, Dawn Ray’d) – which collectively range even further afield to draw from Prog, Screamo, and Shoegaze – the group’s orchestral “post-everything” approach has been blurring genre boundaries for the last decade, with each successive album further showcasing both the breadth of the band’s creative vision and the depth of emotion they’re able to conjure from their instruments.

And with the recent release of their fourth full-length, Hiraeth, now seemed like the perfect time to finally make good on my promise to one day give them their due here at NCS.

BLACKER THAN THE BLACKEST BLACK

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Jul 312024

(Andy Synn catches up on some of last month’s bumper crop of Black Metal)

Despite what some people might believe, we’re big fans of the ol’ Black Metal genre here at NCS.

Sure, there’s certain artists we don’t fuck with, for reasons which are entirely our own, but considering how rich and fertile the field is right now (as today’s article so adamantly demonstrates – right down to the fact that I didn’t have time to also include the likes of Coldcell, Limbes, and Unholy Altar) there’s more than enough great options out there to keep us busy until the inevitable heat death of the universe.

So – since I didn’t want the next edition of “Things You May Have Missed” to be all Black Metal – here’s four short-but-sweet write-ups of some recent albums I thought would put a smile (although I guess it’s more of a grimace) on your corpse-painted faces.

EYE EATER – ALIENATE

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Jul 292024

(Andy Synn finds himself far from alienated by the new album from Eye Eater)

It’s always been fascinating to me how different ears, on different people, can hear something different – whether subtly or strikingly – when listening to the same thing.

Case in point, a quick peruse of the listener reviews on the Bandcamp page for enigmatic New Zealand extremists Eye Eater will reveal a number of different descriptions of the band’s music, from “Progressive Death Metal” to “Blackened Death Metal” to “Dissonant Death Doom”.

And while, to a greater or lesser extent, I can understand where these listeners are coming from, what’s really interesting to me is what they’re not saying… which is that it would be just as valid to make references to “Deathcore” and “Tech Death” when it comes to the band’s gloom-heavy, crushingly claustrophobic, and hauntingly atmospheric blend of styles and genres.

DEFACEMENT – DUALITY

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Jul 242024

(Andy Synn shares some words of wisdom, and warning, about the duplicitous, dichotomous, and devastating new album from Defacement)

Everyone knows that the common trajectory for bands is for them to get mellower and more melodic – maybe a little proggier, here and there, but still more accessible overall – as their career goes on.

But what the hell would such a transition even sound like in the context of a band like Defacement?

UPRISING – III

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Jul 222024

(Andy Synn finds himself inspired once more – in more ways than one – by the music of Uprising)

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a bit of musical escapism, that’s for sure, and I love songs about gods and monsters, mysterious mountain kingdoms and crazy cosmic phenomena as much as anyone.

But there’s also a time and a place for music with a message as well, and since 2016 – wow, has it really been that long? – Uprising (AKA the solo project of Waldgeflüster‘s Jan van Berlekom) have been spreading their anarchic, anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian message of resistance and revolt through the medium of some absolutely killer, riff-driven and punk-propelled Black Metal.

And, for better or worse, that message still rings true on their new album, which was released just last week.

CEREMONY OF SILENCE – HÁLIOS

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Jul 182024

(Andy Synn makes some noise about the upcoming new album from Ceremony of Silence)

It’s a common refrain that certain genres – Metalcore, Deathcore, Djent (if we’re still using that word) – reached the point of oversaturation far too quickly, with the plethora of clones and copies often crowding out the more creative and/or innovative artists.

And while we can argue over the validity of this statement – like anything it’s a lot more nuanced, and a lot less black and white, than all that – I think we can all agree that you don’t hear this sort of rhetoric anywhere near as often when people talk about more overtly “underground” styles… even though it’s often just as true.

Case in point, the burgeoning “Dissodeath” genre (although, can we really still call it “burgeoning” when it began to coalesce into a distinct style over a decade ago?) has also rapidly reached the point of saturation, with the result being that – while most of the originators are still forging ahead and exploring the depths, and the limits, of their sound – it’s getting a little harder each month to really identify the stand-outs.

That’s not to say, however, that these stand-outs don’t exist, and with their new album (out tomorrow) Slovakia’s Ceremony of Silence look set to further establish themselves as one of the more notable acts in the ever-expanding disso-sphere.

SCARCITY – THE PROMISE OF RAIN

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Jul 162024

(Andy Synn finds a paradoxical abundance of weirdness and creativity in the new album from Scarcity)

Very occasionally someone will ask us why we don’t cover more of the bigger, more mainstream-friendly, names in Metal. And our response to this is generally two-fold.

Firstly, it’s not like those sorts of acts actually need our attention or our endorsement, since they already get more than enough of that from other, slightly less discriminatory, outlets.

Secondly… well, after a certain point they all just kind of sound the same (although you could also say that about the annual wave of OSDM revivalists?), so it just doesn’t really seem worth us expending time and effort to cover a bunch of bands – all following the same trends and writing to the same formula – who we don’t really like, just for the clicks.

That being said, there are times when a band steps up with a new twist on a classic recipe which seems so obviously destined for massive success and acclaim that we can’t help but be caught up in all the hype along with everyone else.

Scarcity, however, are not that band.

BEST OF BRITISH: AKLASH / PIJN / TURIN

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Jul 102024

(Andy Synn highlights three more examples of home-grown heaviness from the UK)

I was originally intending to finish and publish this particular article last week, but issues at work, combined with covering for Islander here while he was off attending Ascension Festival, meant things fell behind schedule.

I even thought I might be able to get it finished over the weekend, only to spend Friday afternoon/evening having fun axe-throwing (and then drinking) to celebrate my friend Chris’s birthday, followed by a night of beers and whiskey with (most of) the band on Saturday, and then a day spent having drinks (and doughnuts) with some of my fiancé’s friends on Sunday… so that didn’t happen either.

Still, better late than never, right? And I promise it won’t be as long until the next edition (for which I’ve already got 2 out of 3 bands confirmed).

WORMED – OMEGON

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Jul 092024

(DGR dives over the event horizon of the new album from Spanish cyber-slam destroyers Wormed)

There was a sort of mad cackle that emerged from me after the first few runs of Wormed‘s newest issuance from the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

It was maybe after the third spin of Omegon that I couldn’t help but laugh, a semi-rueful one somewhere between Ralph Wiggum’s “I’m in danger!” chuckle and one that was in awe of the band somehow managing to unleash yet another disc of mind bending tempo shifts and instrumental destruction.

Honestly, what it comes down to is the question facing every writer when they’re handed a Wormed released (Omegon being my second) which is… “how in the unholy hell am I even going to describe this thing?“.

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