Cyrax - Reflections (2013)

Listening to any number of bands, you can usually pick out one or ten of the influences that brought them to this point in their career. Whether it be bands who gave them ideas, or entire genres that made them fine tune their sound, everyone has the laundry list of those who came before that they tip their hats to. The greatest success, though, is being able to take those influences, and turn them into something wholly unique, something you can call your own. Otherwise you become a glorified cover band. Cyrax, a new five piece act from Italy, have given themselves quite the conundrum. Their influences are many and diverse, a huge sampling or artists both heavy and avant, new and old. But as they try to find their own way in this world we call metal, their feet seem to be finding paths of those who walked before, rather than trampling new ground. And, for better or worse, their debut album, "Reflections" is exactly what the name would seem to indicate. But that name is the first, and possibly last thing on this album that truly makes sense.

If you've come looking for something conventional, you may have stumbled into the wrong neighborhood. Techno beats begin Doom Against True Hell, enough to make you question whether you've selected the wrong album from your playlist. They don't leave, but merely fade into the background during the bulk of the song. However, their presence is off-putting much of the time, especially in an album that boasts a very classic metal sound. The precedent that would seem to set is a disturbing one, one that makes each tracks beginning to be an anxious moment. My Kingdom For A Horse a strange track when taken on its own, but even stranger when compared to what the album looks like as a whole. Even the song's vocal hook is hard to digest, repeatedly pounding the title into your frontal lobe. The rest of the track is a sing-songy journey, only salvaged by a great sense of melody in the guitar leads. With even progressive more complex riff, The Moore Of Venice is the most serviceable chunk on the album, leaning more towards classic prog rhythms and away from dance club thumping beats. But even here, the interlude detracts from much of the momentum that had been built. There is little to no sense of flow or structure, which wouldn't be an issue of things didn't feel as disjointed as they do. The midway point and surrounding pieces could pass for a b-side from UK avant metallers Hell, if not for the subsequent breaks.

A symphonic opening comes as a huge surprise, especially given the title of the song it precedes is Fight, but with this album, it may be best to throw any ideas of the norm aside. stuck between an orchestral beginning and some beautifully sung male and female operatic vocals is a straight forward heavy metal middle, complete with virtuosic guitar performance. But, as before, the rhyme or reason in getting from start to finish is lost somewhere. The second half of the album struggles to stay afloat, with few bright spots left to carry the immense weight. Thunderlight has all of the emotional feel of true power metal, but falls short in so many ways. Like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, there are enough twists to make each one progressively less effective. broken into 45 second chunks, you can find a lot to enjoy, but combined into one track, it is a mess. And when you've stumbled through five tracks, the sixth one, a skewed ballad, is not the sort of relief you need. The album isn't a trainwreck, despite many of the faults we've covered thus far, but Feel The Essence Of Blues is far from the ideal album closer. Horns, walking bass lines and a full chorus of voices sounds like a match made in heaven, but misses the mark.

It's completely OK to not get it. There are tons of albums that are released every year that many of us might listen to, shrug our shoulders and simply admit that we don't see the appeal. Cyrax is a band with a million influences, and they try to exercise all of them all of the time. Unfortunately, that just isn't a formula for success. The album feels hectic and disjointed, with many of the songs sounding like a handful of clips taped together. The flow that is so essential in modern music just isn't there, and it means the listener doesn't have any central theme or sound to hang on to. As a result, "Reflections" fails in the most fundamental way; it doesn't give people a reason to keep listening, start to finish, or come back for more. By no means am I speaking in absolutes or facts. Different strokes, after all. But if this musical collective wants to appeal to the masses, they are going to have to narrow the scope of their music, and go for quality of output rather than quantity of styles.

5/10

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cyraxmetal

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An Autumn For Crippled Children - Try Not To Destroy Everything You Love (2013)

How can anyone outside of the band itself ever say which piece of work best represents their sound? Influences and inspiration change, and each album a band releases should represent that. An Autumn For Crippled Children are not the same band they were in 2010, at the time of their debut album. That band no longer exists; they've grown, changed, evolved into the modern melodic black metal band they are today. Sure, you will still hear fleeting moments of the band that once was, but even those are different. You can never go back in time to rediscover that sound. And thankfully, in this case, you wouldn't want to. Having fine tuned every aspect of their music in the last three years, this is a band looking forward, not backwards. They've introduced new wrinkles to familiar formulas, pushing themselves toward the next evolutionary step. And with this, their forth album in three years, they have found a plateau that they could stand comfortably on for a decade. The introspective and daring "Try Not To Destroy Everything You Love" is the missing link.

Having taken such giant leaps on their previous effort, it stands to reason that they would come right out of the gate at a similar rate. Not to be disappointed, "Autumn Again" is a blustery piece of modern black metal, but that would be an oversimplification. The use of keyboards and synthesizers is astoundingly effective here, often offsetting the raw power of both the drums and vocals. The percussion elements seem reckless but their foundation is strong, akin to some of the more daring post-rock bands from the far east. The beats are nothing if not deliberate, with tracks like "The Woods Are On Fire" making the most of every solitary drum stick movement and kick. They have found their niche between aggression and transcendence, a foot hold that grows with every sweep keyboard melody. So much so, in fact, that it would not be a stretch to declare this to be the best track of their catalog so far. It is a statement of direction; not a new one or change in one, but a firm step down a path. The atmospheric backing is haunting, while the chilling screams, such as on "Never Complete," are just as raw and jagged as they were when the band began.

There are obvious departures from the past on the album, as well. The title track, for instance, has an opening that is as much jazz club groove as it is anything else. The light tapping of cymbals provides ample support to a bass led melody, a fitting calm before the storm moment. The aforementioned storm, while not up to the magnitude the analogy invites, is enough to displace a few hairs on your head with gusts of distortion. Everything blows and swirls around that central framework, the one so carefully crafted with the growing keyboard presence. It would be difficult not to acknowledge the art-rock qualities that seem present throughout the flow of the album, whether it be the outro to the title track, or the intro to "Hearts Of Light." This may not be a softer band than we have known, but it is a band expanding their influence and, more importantly, their musical output. You'll find a great deal of sincerity buried in the screams, just as much as each singular piano key. That is an attraction that is hard to manufacture; heavy music isn't always heralded for it's ability to bring out emotion. And while "Sepia Mountains For Her Lament" is the shortest track on the album, it is also the most breathtaking. It speaks volumes with every snare, every synthesized note.

The depth of the album isn't even evident by this point, needing the final trio of songs to make it complete. "Closer" is as explosive a track as you'll find on this disc, reverting back into the wild drum patterns of the early stages of the album, without ever losing that firm grip and bass driven leads. The segment that comes just after the three minute mark could just as easily be attributed to a band like Te or dredg, harnessing every ounce of power in each instrument to pull you into the swirling winds. Through a series of mood and tempo changes, they convey strength and emotion, without any lyric sheet necessary. With the dynamics of light and dark now fully at work, "Avoiding Winter" capitalizes at every turn. Whether it be the serene opening, which is beautiful in it's own right, or the first blast of distorted guitars that follow, each segment plays well off the one before and after it. Perhaps the most easily overlooked victory here is on a song like "Starlit Spirits," where the instrumental becomes so expansive, that it is almost too much to contain in one mix. Due to the nature of the music itself, we dismiss production; but here it should be celebrated.

Much in the way that we are not in charge of how a band progresses and changes throughout their career, we are also not in a place to demand anything. Yes, you miss the days when Metallica made music you wanted to hear. And yes, the last few Megadeth albums have been a great departure from anything close to listenable. But you can't reach back 15 years and recreate that sound. An Autumn For Crippled Children are proof that change can be a good thing, honing their own style into one that is strong, but delicate, vibrant, but subdued. It isn't that they've abandoned who they once were, all those years ago; they have just allowed their music to grow and change with them, as people. The raw has come face to face with the well rounded and smooth, and the results speak for themselves. There is, of course, a downside to any album that stakes a claim as the best in any one band's catalog; you'll never look at their other discs the same way again. But after "Try Not To Destroy Everything You Love," I think we can all be perfectly content with that.

9.5/10

Bandcamp - http://anautumnforcrippledchildren.bandcamp.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/An-Autumn-For-Crippled-Children/108017119243983

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Sannhet - Lions Eye / You Thy __ (EP) (2013)

Many of the best bands you've never heard of are hiding somewhere in the sprawling utopia of Brooklyn, NY. Audiophiles and music obsessed fans from all walks of life could find solace on any given night somewhere in Brooklyn's seemingly endless venues and music harbors. Hip hop has found a home in the building next to a venue that often houses noise and hardcore bands. They coexist, sometimes not happily, and form the proverbial rainbow. Open the door to any music hall or bar, and it would seem the sounds emanating from within those four walls will tickle your senses in ways you forgot existed. But for some reason, the streets of Brooklyn also act as egg crates, scattering and confining the sound to those city blocks, away from the outside world that might corrupt or poison it. Sannhet are not restricted to their home; after the release of their critically acclaimed debut, "Known Flood" their name began to spread like a whisper around the US, and the world. That sound all their own, that energetic approach to heavy music rears it's beautiful head once again, this time on "Lions Eye / You Thy __."

It is without hesitation that you are thrust into the thrill of the battle, with all three members jumping on the beat with surgical and clean precision. The battery of blackened metal drumming that leads off is hard to wrap one's head around initially; it has all of the ferocity of the darkest form of metal, without the tin can sound hidden within each snare. It's in that way that "Lions Eye" fools you; it boasts the energy of one style, while still maintaining the integrity of another. Drummer Christopher Todd smashes and pounds his way through verse and chorus, as bassist AJ Annunziata inputs his own spin on the main theme. Their truly unique take on instrumental metal, be it experimental or otherwise, leads to mind altering results. The harsh reality of "Lions Eye" flows progressively into the melody based "You Thy __," which has a punch in it's own right. But amidst that very post-metal shift of tides, it is the same trio doing very similar things within their own space. Guitarist John Refano reaches for the higher registers, almost crying over the top of the chaos down below. But that chaos, the unrestrained attack of the rhythm section, is anything but reckless. Methodical and chemically entwined, it rises and falls together.

Whether they are the next big thing, or merely the next great band to come out of Brooklyn, Sannhet are always going to be more than any label could describe. Their music is one of a kind. No, they aren't the first band to play guitar, bass and drums, minus the vocal, in a vibrant and eclectic formation. But they way they arrange their sounds, the way they put them together, and the way it pulses through your speakers is, without fail, a new experience. There is a reason they have garnered so much praise for their work over the last ten months, and it isn't for what they said on Twitter, how many grams of weed they were caught with in a routine traffic stop, or how many hookers were found in their hotel rooms on their tour of South America. For once, and hopefully forever, you have a band that can be appreciated on the merits of the music they create, and the astonishing combination of sounds and images that spring to mind. It's only two songs, which makes it easy to overreact. But "Lions Eye / You Thy __" may have captured the sound and fury of 2013 in less than eight minutes.

10/10

Bandcamp - http://sannhet.bandcamp.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sannhet

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