Artist: Sainc
Title: Schizis
Type: Album
Label: Chaos Production
Polish groovy deathsters Sainc’s second album ‘Schizis’ promises an investigation into human psychiatric disorders, personality disintegration and borderline personality disorder, and a close look into the varied examples of the dark human behaviour. An intriguing and promising premise certainly, but then we’ve heard these kind of promises before. Even so, for those who like a side order of psychobabble with their metal, this one’s for you. Not sure Freudian metal is something that could really take off, but if you’re potentially interested in finding out why those sociopathic urges you sometimes feel are rooted in a deeply repressed desire to have sex with your mother, all to a background of chugging distorted guitars, then hit that play button and take a journey into the mind with Sainc.
One thing that Sainc do really well is set a mood, and the constant use of movie sound bites and effects set a scene quite nicely, with an opening statement and reiteration that “we all go a little mad sometimes”, which is fair I guess. Musically, we’re talking mid paced heavy chugging death, but vocally it’s a bit of a let-down with the singer operating in a kind of constipated atonal Max Cavalera window with the occasional spoken passage. The lyrics are quite difficult to make out, and with the absence of a lyric sheet in the CD inlay, the insights they have on the various states of the human mind remain something of a mystery. Despite this, musically, Sainc are not bad at all, with a guitar and bass sound heavy enough to knock you on your arse and a rhythm varied enough to maintain interest. Songs such as ‘Senectus’ and ‘Darkness Time’, whilst quite deliberately paced, carry a decent groove, and have a roughness about them that suits the music and subject matter very well. There’s an element of early Bolt Thrower about the music at times, which as far as I’m concerned is a good thing.
One of the things I found most interesting about ‘Schizis’ was trying to work out where the various movie sound bites came from, as there are Dirty Harry, Apocalypse Now and Psycho quotes to name but a few, but if I’m honest, the fact that these were one of the more engaging things I found here is a bit disappointing. The album is clearly a grower, and the atmosphere is edgy, oppressive and claustrophobic, which is a clear win given the subject matter; but it does get very samey very quick and on each play I did find myself wishing the album to a quicker conclusion. The problem seems to be with the vocals, which although quite competent, don’t really vary enough in style to maintain interest, and despite some very promising passages, particularly on ‘666 Phobia’, ‘Depression’ and ‘Primitive Fear’, it is often musically muddled and occasionally even tiresome. ‘Schizis’ is definitely worth a listen, but probably not much more than that. It’s possible of course that there are wonderful hidden depths here, and a truly unique insight into the human psyche as promised, but without that lyric sheet I guess we’ll never know. Shame really.
http://www.myspace.com/sainc
