Syrynx – EP 2011 (2011)

Hailing from the Northern lands of Canada, today we have Syrynx and their debut EP. The band features the talents of female vocalist Mikki Straatsma (VIVEYNNE) and mixes many musical influences creating a very diverse sounding release.

Featuring six tracks, this EP ranges from instrumental pieces to very catchy Nu Metal sounding tunes with some Progressive elements. There is a clear indication that the band is still developing their own style since some sections of the songs seem very confusing and not cohesive enough. While the talent is there, we believe that some more polishing to these tracks would have made for a better EP.

Opening this release we have “Crawl Space”, this song features very powerful riffing and once Mikki’s voice kicks in, the song greatly improves. The music of this song is very powerful and there are great progressive elements that nicely blend with Mikki’s vocals, which by the way sound like they are mixed a bit behind everything else. The track closes with awesome guitar work, and as a presentation card this song is very effective.

“Scaryville” opens with solid riffing and tight drumming, but it suddenly feels a bit disconnected and the spoken vocal sections sound very weird. The growls are substandard and we can’t help but wonder why they are even needed in this song at all. We understand the gimmick of the female growler is very popular these days, but we don’t really see the point of the growls with this particular type of music.

“Just Think About It” is the acoustic piece that feels more like a filler, but we can chalk it up to a “let’s go for a beer” break track. Next up we have the second best song of this EP with the name of “Creatures of Habit”, if it wasn’t for the growls everything would be near perfect. The guitar work in this song is stellar and the clean female vocal parts are very powerful.

In “Another Life” we have another switch on the vocals and we get some weird spoken sections that kind of feel a bit out of place. Here we notice that Mikki is trying to experiment with different vocal styles and its ok to do this on a demo, but on the debut EP of a band? This might get some serious points off when trying to score a deal. Closing this release we have “6 Under”, a song that is by far the best from this EP since it features a very straight forward approach and combines most of the strong points of the band.

Overall, we think that this EP is very enjoyable and while you might get lost with the experimentation thrown together, it’s worth checking out. The band has enough quality (and a great singer) to turn heads around and maybe with their next release they manage to consolidate their sound and create something truly especial (and no growls… please).

Release: April 1st, 2011

Country: Canada