Sonic Syndicate Rock
Swedish melodic metalcore heroes Sonic Syndicate chose Bristol to start the UK leg of their tour, which has seen a change of lead singer and most of Europe with barely a break since February.
They told me instead of releasing their new album they decided to first tour the UK with new vocalist Nathan Biggs (previously of The Hollow Earth Theory) from Wrexham, replacing Ronald Johansson since September. Also, 'Rebellion’, a new two song EP recorded with Nathan has been released before their new album hits the shelves on May 28th.
After squeezing onto the somewhat cramped second stage of the O2 Academy in front of a small but excited crowd, they burst straight in with 'Rebellion in Nightmareland' before taking us through a medley of their repertoire, from 2005's 'Jailbreak' to their excellent new single, 'Burn this City'.
Musically they’re a mix of hard thrash metal with gravelly vocals, interposed with melodic choruses that seem to work well together, all sung in English.
I got the feeling they really wanted to run and jump around, but given the cramped conditions it just wasn’t possible. Nevertheless, Nathan slotted seamlessly into the band’s energetic line up as he sang, growled and bounced lines between himself and fellow vocalist Richard Sjunnesson.
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You may think that going from playing in front of 9000 people in Stockholm three days previous, to performing before 150 may discourage a band. Not so. They really gave 100% to which the crowd responded in turn, hands in the air, the more familiar fans singing the choruses with rapture. The sound quality in the venue was good and really helped show off the talents of these musicians, their live performances being close in quality to their studio sets
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Despite being almost unheard of in the UK, this band are already huge in Europe and deservedly so. They have a great mix of quality music and stage presence which works well in venues of any size. With some decent promotion, they will be destined for big things here too - especially as they’ve recently started working with producer Toby Wright, with names such as Korn, Fear Factory, KISS, Slayer and Alice in Chains to his CV.
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Give Sonic Syndicate the proper venue and crowd, and 13/13 won’t be enough!
To view all photos taken during this set click here. There are 16 available.