Schysma
Idiosyncrasy
Revalve Records
2014
Schysma are an Italian band that professes to be playing prog metal. I tried to read a “press” release that accompanied the album, but if it was written in Italian, I suppose I might have had a better understanding than I had with this poorly written attempt in English, so I soon gave up, after conferring that this is their debut after an EP (no more EPs!!!!! help!) a couple of them got endorsements and they did hire people to promote their band in various places! Oh and the band appears to be the brainchild of keyboard player Martina Bellini.
At any rate, I will admit that they seem to be decently versed players, but they seem to have a rather unusual approach to prog in fact they seem to feature a second vocalist in addition to Riccardo Minicucci, their main vocalist, who just does harsh vocals, on occasion, to underline certain portions of songs. There a rather gothic feel, minor atmospheres, it’s a rather bleak sort of prog and the fact that Riccardo seems to wail all the time made him a little unbearable at times, even if he seems to be a capable singer, who seems to be sacrificing the quality of timbre, for a chance to hit some notes and also seems to have also some issues with his accent, which are not easy to overlook. To my ears he sounded like a bad version of the guy from Elvenking (who’s also Italian) coupled with Wade Back.
There are a couple of worthwhile songs – ie the opener “Lost in the Maze”, the more modern and underwhelming “Heremetic” with it’s nice eastern flavored solo, the also bizarre, “Migdal” that sounds out of the ordinary and maybe “Invictus” with its interesting ideas, but when a band manages to tire, as much as these guys do, in fifty three minutes, then something is wrong. There’s musical virtuosity and there’s actual intelligence in composition when Schysma are not trying too hard ie in “Supreme Solution”, one of the simplest songs on the album, they actually sound, the best. I guess those simpler songs towards the end of the album are the result of them “using up” all their ideas up on the initial songs. “Sinners” is also not too bad.
Very uneven, album, by a band that has some very good ideas and good chops, but applies them very badly.
At any rate, I will admit that they seem to be decently versed players, but they seem to have a rather unusual approach to prog in fact they seem to feature a second vocalist in addition to Riccardo Minicucci, their main vocalist, who just does harsh vocals, on occasion, to underline certain portions of songs. There a rather gothic feel, minor atmospheres, it’s a rather bleak sort of prog and the fact that Riccardo seems to wail all the time made him a little unbearable at times, even if he seems to be a capable singer, who seems to be sacrificing the quality of timbre, for a chance to hit some notes and also seems to have also some issues with his accent, which are not easy to overlook. To my ears he sounded like a bad version of the guy from Elvenking (who’s also Italian) coupled with Wade Back.
There are a couple of worthwhile songs – ie the opener “Lost in the Maze”, the more modern and underwhelming “Heremetic” with it’s nice eastern flavored solo, the also bizarre, “Migdal” that sounds out of the ordinary and maybe “Invictus” with its interesting ideas, but when a band manages to tire, as much as these guys do, in fifty three minutes, then something is wrong. There’s musical virtuosity and there’s actual intelligence in composition when Schysma are not trying too hard ie in “Supreme Solution”, one of the simplest songs on the album, they actually sound, the best. I guess those simpler songs towards the end of the album are the result of them “using up” all their ideas up on the initial songs. “Sinners” is also not too bad.
Very uneven, album, by a band that has some very good ideas and good chops, but applies them very badly.