Sinnery – Below the Summit (Exitus Stratagem Records)
Wednesday, 27th September 2023
Smartly following up last year’s great Black Bile album, Israeli band Sinnery serve listeners a five-track EP in Below the Summit. There’s a sense of urgency tempered with finesse, sophistication, and passionate aggression through all facets of the quartet’s style – making the material memorable through each successive pass. Expect layers of guitar/bass action that compels intense, deep dives as much as it will cause vicious pit action or stage diving – plus the caustic roar and savage screams from vocalist/guitarist Alon Karnieli that keeps the proceedings faithful to a crossover/underground audience.
The flow of the record moves between longer, more musically adventurous tracks and focused, quick hitters that level naysayers while causing circular swirls of people to careen massively against one another. The influences can be groove-enhanced a la Machine Head or Sepultura one minute for “Share This” and then a roller coaster of transitions through The Haunted/ latter day Testament thrash meets Gojira-like rhythmic punch on “An Ode (Knife of Erato)” – the mid-section containing some sinister guitar harmonic sequences that inject some progressive nuances. The brighter lead sections against this mid-tempo stomp foundation allows closer “Serene” to be the highlight track of the bunch – bassist Saar Tuvi supplementing the catchy rhythms with some intricate low end fluid parts. Self-produced by the band, Sinnery adapt well to a sound that contains enough dynamic variance to attract a wide variety of people into all sorts of thrash – although the vocals will probably be most appreciated by the more current/modern metal followers than old school people who prefer a bit more of a melodic approach.
Those who live for a great amalgamation across the progressive, extreme, modern, and thrash genres may find Sinnery with Below the Summit very intriguing. A good teaser for what could be a blockbuster third album if these gentlemen push themselves into the right live show/festival action.
