By Monk
When you’ve been involved in a local music scene for as many years as I have been, you get to see dozens, if not hundreds, of bands come and go, careers career (sic) out of control and success ebb and flow like the tides on the rivers that lie at the heart of this dirty ol’ town I lovingly, if sometimes grudgingly, call home. One band whose career most definitely has ebbed and flowed, crashed off every wall in every venue they’ve ever played, and almost incinerated itself in the process, is Sinocence, stalwarts of Belfast’s metal scene for the past two decades, a longevity which in itself epitomizes how much the smell of the survival instinct has imbued itself into the very fibre of their being and existence. Now, after an extended, and somewhat enforced hiatus, the godfathers of the local scene are back on the attack with a new line-up and a new EP and, as this release forcefully proves, a new fire rising (sic) in their collective and individual bellies…
If anyone is in any doubt as to the veracity of the latter point, the lead title track – a former ÜR Video Of The Week – soon sets everyone, and the world itself, right… While omitting the immediate rib-breaking crunch that the likes of Titanic-sinking ‘Long Way Down’ (from their epic ‘No Gods No Masters’ trilogy) introduced, it is no less impactful, it’s riff broiling and bubbling, drawing you in to its deepest recesses before the acidic vocals spit you in the face and demand your attention with the ferocity of a hungry wolf with its fangs around your precious ball sack.
Many of the band’s previous anti-theistic, anti-dogmatic, anti-conformist lyrical miens and themes remain omnipresent (as evinced by the likes of ‘Incarcerated’ and the self-explanatory ‘Societies Sins’), and the sound, centred around dense, winding classic-infused metal riffology combined with crunching grooves and fat rhythmics, is still most defiantly of the Sinocence we know. But there is a new, more visceral, more enervated feel, combined with a darker, angrier mood – and a possibly ironic sense of luminosity that permeates this renewed and reinvigorated incarnation of the band.
Underpinning the entire Sinocence ethos always has been the partnership of guitarist Anto McCaughley and bassist Jim Seymour, who seem joined at the hip both physically and psychically, almost reading each other’s thoughts, pre-empting them even, with a bond which would make even the closest of Siamese twins jealous, presenting an ever coherent and cohesive vision for where they want to go. That vision may have suffered some blurring, and their journey experienced more than its share of bumps and diversions, along the way, but with this latest incarnation of their beloved project, they are well and truly back on the highway and steering a path which makes its way to its destination more accurately than Robin Hood firing that second arrow (sorry Anto, couldn’t resist getting an archery reference in there!)
New drummer Matt McLaughlin perfectly complements, and compliments, Seymour’s massive and taut bass work, a complete and total machine behind the kit, combining dexterity and power in equal measure, with double kicks more than capable of demolishing tower blocks from a mile away. Second guitarist Neil Ward has made the progression from being in a band that supported the Sins on so many occasions to being in the main attraction with aplomb and panache, dancing in and around the basis of Anto’s concrete-solid riffs while also accentuating both their strengths in terms of laying down some fairly seriously shredded solos. Overtopping everything is the complete powerhouse performance of Duane Watson: while his vocal style is somewhat similar to that of his predecessor, he defiantly makes the role his own, switching from power growls through cleans and high end harmonics to down ‘n’ dirty disdain with effortless ease.
If you’re looking for proof that the fire still burns, never mind rises, in a band who have been around the block more times than a boy racer on a moped, then click on the link below and turn this muthafucka up to truly neighbour-annoying volumes. All hail the Sins \m/
- ‘The Fire Rises‘ is out now.
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