Sintax “Sway For A Better Day”
Inverse records
Israeli metal scene (as any local, however) is some kind of image of the country. It’s extremely little, noisy and sometimes very bright. Many knows about Orphaned Land and Melechesh. Some knows about Yiddish-metal pioneers Gevolt. And now here’s the new, striking band – Sintax. Extreme Jerusalem Metal, as they call themselves.
Before starting to talk about the band itself and their firstborn album Sway For A Better Day, I want to say that it’s not exactly “extreme” in modern sense, but very interesting, high quality thrash and groove-metal. Unlike other “young” bands, Sintax musicians are in music for a long time and they do know what they want to play. And most importantly, they know how to play.
Sintax was formed in late 2010 by former members of Shwortsechaye and Birth bands. So, by Israel standards it’s real super group. After writing musical material the band actively performed, participated in festivals and had a special feature on the Israeli Headbangers Ball. And now the time has come for their debut album Sway For A Better Day.
Little bit unnecessary but short “Intro” changing with middle-tempo self-titled song “Sway For A Better Day”. Great old school guitar riff and Yehi Zaken’s vocals sets tone and mood for the whole album. Recording quality is also high: perfectly well recorded vocals, guitars and drums, with good album’s mix; these guys knows their business good.
In the next “Let’s Get Mental” can be heard some Pantera‘s influence. Roi Illouz and Lemmy Keller’s guitars with great riffs, vocals are strong and confident. Some critics compare Yehi Zaken’s vocals with Phil Anselmo. I would not hurry with these conclusions, but I admit a highly visible certain similarity. Also I want to mention Nir Baruch, the drummer and his work: powerful innings, drum solos and thrashing are glorious. Brilliant work.
“Four More Years”, which was chosen to shoot the video is a great sample of groove-metal: easily memorable guitar riff hammered in a head with drums, harsh vocals and anti-political lyrics to the core. «Making sense is not politically correct» is a good verdict to the modern society.
At the beginning I’ve mentioned thrash-metal, and not without reason. There’s a lot of it in an album, and it’s various enough. From “classic” thrash “Fine Line”, made, as it seems, under influence of big four; through absolutely unpredictable “The Answer” where rhythm can change every ten seconds, the drums keeps calm pace and suddenly changes with blast-beats and double-pedal, and guitars are changing music line even faster than rhythm.
The album ends with the most melodic and maybe the most evil song “Up The Physical”. Sometimes it seems that musicians wanted to bring all their aggression down on the listener with this song (like the others weren’t enough (really weren’t)).
The only lack of an album is its length – only 32:44. But it’s enough to be impressed, to start headbang against your own will and repeat it.
But seriously, by Sway For A Better Day musicians set high enough level for themselves, both in music and quality. Very decent work, which will be liked and appreciated by many metalheads.
The album will be released on June, 17 by Inverse Records.
(c) Droll (www.dailymetal.com.ua)
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