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Elyne

Syncretism

Written by: BL on 20/10/2013 18:14:51

Elyne are a metalcore four piece from Ravenna, Italy who play melodic metalcore in the exact vein of bands like Bury Tomorrow and Adept. They've been together all of eleven months since November last year, and in many ways, still have very a long way to go as their first recorded EP "Syncretism" clearly shows - a few mildly interesting ideas but nothing endearing, and ultimately a very forgettable experience.

In order to make a strong impression, the opening moments of the first song are critical especially when your EP only has four of them. What you probably shouldn't do then, is something like "This Nightmare Must Be Ending" - a song that begins with lukewarm heavy guitars with clean vocals that are still pretty rough around the edges. Okay so that doesn't sound too bad right? But then it moves onto this bizarre four second pause where the bass guitar rings one note, and there's this out of place electronic beat in the background before the actual song begins. Perhaps one is being overly pedantic when scrutinising to such a fine degree, but this illustrates the lack of pedigree in Elyne's songwriting which otherwise comes off as dated and naive. Meanwhile, putting aside the fact that "Dead Or Asleep" has hopelessly uninspired guitars and other instrumentals (simple metalcore riffing, power chords, and ringing semi tones), vocalist Daniele Faccani also needs to work on his enunciation as his thick Italian accent, and lack of fluent English makes it hard to take the already corny lyrics seriously when things become quiet late on. It's not all woe for Eyne as the EP named song and closer "Buried In The Sky" show signs of improvement in a few areas, but by that point it's come a little too late.

Despite a growing cynicism, metalcore still remains a large part of my active listening rotation. But then when one sits down to listen to something like "Syncretism", there's just very little in there that keep you interested or entertained. We do have to be aware that in light of all this negative criticism, Elyne is still a very young band and as such perhaps deserve another shot. But considering the competition they're up against and the hyper saturated scene they want to join, that's a pretty tall order.

Download: Buried In The Sky
For the fans of: Bury Tomorrow, Adept, For The Fallen Dreams
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Release date 17.09.2013
This Is Core