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Symphorce > Sinctuary > Reviews
Symphorce - Sinctuary

A sin that cries out for piety. - 59%

hells_unicorn, April 28th, 2014
Written based on this version: 2000, CD, Noise Records

There is a certain irony to Symphorce, or at least it comes off as ironic given that it rarely proves to be the case that a band diverges so completely from its so-called founding purpose. It was the original conception of fairly renowned vocalist Andy Franck, who was also brought in as Brainstorm's principle vocal persona at around the time that this band trotted out their mixed bag of a debut. But while this band was supposedly the brainchild of a vocalist that also happened to join in with an older and better known outfit, the reality is that Symphorce comes off as a mere afterthought in just about every possible sense. Naturally with any band that would have a fairly extensive catalog before falling apart, this lack of seriousness actually has a variety of different manifestations as far as their studio work is concerned, and their sophomore effort Sinctuary is one of the easier ones to digest.

As an album, this one is marked by a number of firsts and lasts, all of them contributing to the overall sound in ways that explain where it goes right and wrong, and it just barely manages more of the former than the latter. This is the first album to feature guitarist Cede Dupont, arguably one of the weakest guitarists ever to hit the power metal scene at the climax of the revival period of the early 2000s, and he proves to be fairly out of place among the rest of the fold. His riffs tend to be on the lazy side, sounding more like a groovy hodgepodge of hard rock and groove metal influences, and sporting a fairly mechanical sound. Occasionally he'll rip out a half-decent guitar solo, but there's nothing on here technique-wise that even approaches 90% of what Germany was putting forth at this point. This is also the last album to feature keyboardist H.P. Walter, and his presence alongside a fairly 80s oriented production sound and a cleaner, more consistent vocal job out of Franck tilts this album heavily in favor of the retro-character of bands like Chinchilla, Angel Dust and Metalium.

Naturally the picture here isn't a completely bleak one, but it's well below what most would even consider a 2nd rate affirmation of an already popular approach by the time 2000 rolled around. On a few songs, this album does manage to embody the speed and flair that was commonplace in power metal at the time, such as the cruising opener "Eyes Of Horus" and the surprisingly busy riff monster "Reveal The Secrets", both of them being exceptions to the Dupont rule of dumbed down, slowed down rock riffs with little energy and lots of cliche, and perhaps reveal the reason why Chris Bay selected him as Sascha Gershner's replacement. Franck brings out a full arsenal of late 80s high notes in a slightly cleaner mode, though a lot of the time the songs tend to leave fading impressions rather than utilize the obvious chorus hooks with a sufficient degree of competence. That's pretty much this album's downfall, a lot of halfhearted, meandering verse and bridge ideas that act as mere place holders in between the refrain, resulting in something that is stylistically inviting, but largely forgettable.

In spite of the dumb album title and the even more ridiculous album art, this is arguably the most inoffensive thing that Symphorce has ever come up with. Sadly, barring a few individual cookers and the occasional poignant semi-ballad like "Soulfly", this entire album succeeds in being little more than inoffensive. Mid-tempo territory has long been the Achilles heel of power metal, particularly the strain that was big from 1997-2003, and this album is loaded with plodding examples of it. There were several superior versions of this album to come out in the same general time period, most notably Metalium's State Of Triumph, Chinchilla's The Last Millennium and most notably Angel Dust's Enlighten The Darkness". Much like it's predecessor, Sinctuary isn't really worth a great deal of consideration. It stands as a lasting testament of the project that stayed around far too long, didn't really go much of anywhere, and should probably be soon forgotten by the power metal world.

Shallow and silly; utterly worthless. - 40%

Empyreal, July 9th, 2009

I mean, seriously, just look at the lame pun in that title. There's no way this could've been good. Musically, Symphorce are a waste of breathing space from which nothing of any value can be extracted, and the fact that this album is better than the other one I heard, the woeful Become Death...well, it says a lot for my peace at night to know that the band were not always that bad. Yes, apparently the band that would one day become a justification for God abandoning humanity once played a relatively bland and unambitious form of modernized Power Metal that I still find pretty much inexcusable. Come on, there wasn't anything else you could have listened to? This is like a fifth rate Angel Dust clone, for fuck's sake; get some perspective!

Let's just get this out of the way. Barely any good riffs, generic song structures, over-long songs. They've got this terrible "modern" sounding production that just makes everything on here sound worse. The choruses on here sound ridiculous, and while I really should be able to like them, being the Power Metal whore that I am, I don't; they sound silly and overdone to the point where they don't carry any power at all. The guitars aren't doing anything interesting, the bass isn't doing anything interesting, and the drums aren't...okay, you get the idea: these songs are completely carried by choruses so overblown, cheesy and poppy that honestly could not be any worse, I am dead serious. You don't have to make every single chorus a sing-along anthem, you know! There are other things you can do with your song structures! The melodies sound like fucking childrens' choir melodies most of the time, it's just pitiful. And how the vocals are at the very front of the mix, drowning out everything else?

...You know what, I can see why people don't like Power Metal now, listening to this. I never thought I'd say that, but there it is. Let's just get this shit over with: "Eye of Horus" is perhaps the band's most deceitful moment, convincing everyone that they can actually write a good song, with a very entertaining and powerful chorus that I bet Andy Franck held over from his much better project Brainstorm. There are a lot of very bland songs before we reach "Burning Star," which has the unique ailment of sounding...well, more fruity than a bowl of fruit loops; just listen to that terrible laser gun effect they blended in there with the lifeless guitar thunking; it's impossible to take that seriously! It's still not quite as bad, though, as "Insight," which is as insipid and shallow as a Power Metal song can be. That chorus is unbearable, and the guitars reach an all time nadir of creativity. Gee, it's so bad it almost makes me wish I was listening to a Nevermore album.

Okay, okay, not every song is that bad. "Reveal the Secrets" actually busts out some nice riffs, and the Powermad cover "Nice Dreams" is probably the best written song on this album. Things pretty much tank after that, though; "Soulfly"...generic ballad; traditional German "soft-heavy" transitioning that gets old when you do is as lamely as these guys do. "Resting Places" is just bland and "Freedom" is another suckfest that succumbs to the same Power Metal cliches that tore a hole in the genre in the middle of this decade. I also love how they title the very last song "Gone Too Far," because it just sums up my opinion about this so well it hurts.

This is crap. There are a few songs on this album that point to it being otherwise, but don't be fooled. The songwriting is terrible, the ideas are terrible and everything about this is just godawfully, unceremoniously fucking terrible. I should have learned my lesson the last time I listened to something by these clowns, but no, apparently not. You know what they say, though: Fooled me once, shame on you; fooled me twice...shame on me. And indeed, shame on me.

Originally written for http://www.metalcrypt.com

Not that original, but quite a sequel. - 76%

Corimngul, November 3rd, 2004

Symphorce’s last album on Noise Records is where it all started to work out for these Germans. This is quite a development from Truth To Promises, but simpler than and not as good as the following albums. The cover artwork happens to be the worst though. As music comes this is a piece of heavy metal with thrashy guitars. The music really resembles their name. Melodies with force! They mix Stefan Köllner’s excellent drumming, some of the better guitars we’ve heard in heavy metal for a long time (played by Cedric Dupont) and Andy. B. Franck’s superb vocals. He sings with power, he sings with class. His problem is as always, that he sings technically great but not emotionally enough. He does a better job here than he uses to though.
So, the instruments work well, the album radiates a feeling of happiness and everything sounds good. Listening deeper though, one finds this is not a very original album even though the thick keyboard layers. The keyboards, which by the way are real, real cool. Listen to the intro in the beginning of the album for example. That’s some good work by H.P. Walter there, yeah. A couple of the songs seems to have choruses that fits into pop songs. The chorus of Insight for example, sounds very much like one of Sting’s songs.