For quite a while now and across a handful of releases, British alternative/gothic rockers Sinnergod has suggested they are in line to seize the British rock scene with their dramatic and ever growing sound. With their new self-titled offering the Manchester hailing outfit has come to that day, their second album a compelling and increasingly irresistible theatre of dark rock and metal announcing the band ready to help lead British rock.
Formed by twin brothers Mark and Chris Hampson in 2007, Sinnergod quickly grabbed attention and plaudits. Within months of hitting their stride live, the quintet earned a slot playing Bloodstock Open Air Festival. A trio of EPs followed, Two Thousand and Never in 2009, A World in Grey three years later with Behind Every Corner uncaged the following year. Each provided an ear and imagination pleasing proposal, each showing fresh evolution and adventure in the band’s sound leading up to the well-received and impressive debut album Seven Deadly Sinphonies in 2014, a release featuring special guests Bill Moseley (Devil’s Rejects, Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Tobias Keast (Esoterica). Live too, the band has continued to establish themselves as one of Britain’s finest propositions, sharing stages with the likes of Misfits, Deathstars, Orgy, KMFDM, Sarah Jezebel Deva, Voodoo Six, and Blaze Bayley along the way.
This has now all been eclipsed by their self-titled offering. The new album is a monster of an adventure; a collection of songs which roar and resonate in ears and imagination. Sinnergod draw on the catchiest of eighties hooks and electronic seducing to light the darkest portrayals of emotion amidst an enjoyably invasive sound. It is music which at first appears familiar in some way but needs mere moments to reveal its own distinct and magnetic character.
It opens up with Dead Of The Night, its intro a shadowy and suggestive symphony drawing the listener into the subsequent and swiftly addictive mix of choppy riffs and melodic reflection. As the swiping beats of Chris Hampson land the guitars of Mark Hampson and Sam Saint collude with the keys of Paul Swindells to cast a transfixing weave of emotive sound. Mark’s impressive vocals soon share their heart; lying melancholically upon the blossoming landscape of enterprise as a dark edge is provided by James Dunn’s bass, its shadows in turn prowling the infectiousness of the track’s rousing chorus.
The impressive start is quickly outshone by Burn. The track is glorious, slipping in on the mist of keys as slightly deranged vocals tempt. Once in full heavy motion, riffs and rhythms march masterfully across the senses, vocals and steely melodies combining to further trap the listener. The song is a creative predator, challenging and seducing with every imaginative stride growing into something akin to Nine Inch Nails meets Poets Of The Fall but unique in its own skin.
As the last track is different to the first, The Endless with its symphonic hues offers yet another shade of adventure to the album. As unapologetically catchy as it is muscularly voracious, the song ebbs and flows like a sonic storm, moments of relative emotion packed calm instantly hit by surges of tempestuous energy and sound for another plateau of craft and enjoyment within the release, a success matched by the electronic stomp of I Never Had a Gun. Creating a tapestry of essences found in the likes of Abandon All Ships, Fear Factory, and Silent Descent, the track simmers and bubbles over as it strides relentlessly through ears and into the psyche before making way for the crystalline opening of 1000 Sins. Pretty soon though, its sinew swung rhythms and pulsating theatre of sounds swamps ears; eighties electronic flavouring hinting at bands such as Depeche Mode and Gene Loves Jezebel in tandem with Sinnergod’s own creative might. Addictive and fiercely persuasive, the listener will find themselves quickly emotionally and physically involved, certainly going by the effect song and album had on the office here.
There is also an element of early synthpop fuelled Ministry to the track, before Al Jourgensen dived head first into metal, and a flavouring which soaks the next up serenade of The Watched. Another which sonically simmers but with a liveliness which infects hips and feet, the song is a hug of melodic and harmonic expression and beauty.
Across the gothic electronic and keys shaped dance of Joshua’s Day and the engrossing darklight of Supernatural, a seducing with the open scent of Dave Gahan and co to it, band and album simply flow over the senses, like poetic fog laying heavy but welcomingly before We’ve Been Expecting You rises from a single evocative melody with gothic and orchestral majesty to stand god like over ears while casting its magnanimous musings. As with many songs, it feels like something you may already know yet every note and twist is a new and fresh exploration to album and the dark rock world Sinnergod are poised to take in their creative palms.
The thickly satisfying Johnny Sits Perfectly Still is arguably the least adventurous track upon the album yet needs little time to have ears and participation secured before We Don’t Have Anything looms from portentous shadows and erupts into a Korn/Machine Head spiced foray into ears and passions. The song epitomises the Sinnergod sound; meaty and dark, heavy and melodically aflame with an unrelenting intensity and energy to tempt and lift the spirit. It is an explosive and thrilling end to the album, though the minute long desolate and forlorn soundscape of instrumental XII actually brings the album to a close but it is its predecessor which leaves the last lingering imprint.
Sinnergod is a band on the march and heading to the frontline of British rock/metal, though to be honest their new album suggests they are already there.
The self-titled Sinnergod album is out now through all platforms.
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Pete RingMaster 15/09/2016
Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright
The album, which sees Scott accompanied by a plethora of skilled and inventive talent, opens with Gibbles and a distant wistful melody. The ear is soon under the temptation of dark double bass slaps and bass clarinet seduction though; they in turn courted by a web of brass teasing. A jazzy air soon takes on an exotic flavour through guitar and sax, excited elements entwining for a sultry and mouth-watering dance through Arabian avenues and more Caribbean spiced festivity. All the time though there is a tempering shadow, an underlying turbulence which brews up a danger with fresh seeds for thoughts to twist and redesign its visual landscape with. The nearer its conclusion the more unravelled the track and its calm becomes as it takes the listener into the sonic distortion and percussive bubbling of Proud to be a Mirkin. The second song also brings a brass fuelled agitation aligned to a sinister electronic stalking of the psyche. It is the stuff of dark dreams, though as hindsight will eventually show, just the start of bigger nightmarish intrusions to come.