Release date: 27th March
Synthetic Sympathy is the latest offering from from Bangkok band Defying Decay, a band whose music feels impossible to pigeonhole into one specific genre. Sometimes it feels metalcore, sometimes it feels more electronicore, occasionally even nu-metal, and other times it is just straight-up in your face metal. However, regardless of whatever genre it is – this is a monster of an album.
There’s a lot of really powerful tracks to be found on the album and an early highlight is RX Regicide (which features guest appearances from Kellin Quinn and Noth Getsunova). One of the harder-hitting songs of the album, its is led by mostly clean vocals destined to get stuck in your head, so when the sparingly-used harsh lines are utilised, mostly in tandem with the cleans, it really adds some extra bite to the song. Meanwhile later on the album is my personal favourite, Debris. It has some absolutely massive orchestrations at the start, almost making the song feel like a mini-epic, and the chorus is powerful and memorable, featuring a vocal hook so strong you can’t help but want to sing along. Additionally the rapped section really helps to divide the song up nicely.
However, it does have to be said that due to the fact there’s a lot going on from start to finish, so sometimes it feels a little incoherent as a result. At times the songs feel disconnected from one another, with the flow from one song to the next being a little disjointed. I really must stress that the songs are all great, but sometimes there’s a bit of whiplash – for example, one of the more straightforward rock-sounding and chilled tracks Last Reply precedes Inside These Lies, which has much more of an in-your-face rap/nu metal tone. Both of the tracks are awesome, but they don’t fit nicely together, resulting in Synthetic Sympathy sounding more like a collection of songs, than a single streamlined piece.
It does have to be said that in this streaming and digital world we live in, with lots of listeners choosing to listen to their music on shuffle rather than as a straight album (I guess I’m quite old-fashioned in that sense!) the track flow issue isn’t a humongous problem in the grand scheme of things – and Synthetic Sympathy showcases some awesome songwriting, with zero filler and all killer. Definitely an album worth a closer look, so crank up the volume and give it a listen!
Support: Merch
