(Listenable Records) Total time: 63:04
I must admit this album caught me unawares. I hadn't seen it coming: to be honest, I was expecting yet another nu-metal produce trying to sell itself as “diverse” and “alternative”. Well, “The Pulse of Awakening” is a different story. It is a metal amalgam, with ingredients ranging from grindcore to darkwave, based on a solid industrial basis of the German tendency. The closest standard two-word description would be “industrial metal”, but that's not very suggestive; the band define their style as “death wave”, which is much better.
Sybreed is a young quartet from Geneva, formed in 2003, this being their third full-length album. “The Pulse of Awakening” is very diverse and experimental, as is Sybreed's music in general. These Swiss seem to be passing modern death/grindcore through a German industrial filter, and then play what remains in polyrythmic. And there are even more influences: Katatonic choruses, Emperoric synths, etc.
The band fear not expose their influences because they know they are not copying. This is not copying and mixing together, but rather producing something new accepting the fact that all things derive from somewhere... Technically, “The Pulse of Awakening” is generally flawless, and its production is thick and full. Vocals range over (several) clean and brutal impersonations, with the unavoidable nu-metal aesthetics of the former being present but not distracting. The riffs range from heavy/doom to space rock, and they are generally “catchy”. Keepers of the faith, who prefer their music unlistenable to the general public, might have some objections here, but I wouldn't take them too seriously.
Song-by-song analysis or further description of the music is no good – one should hear to tell. Let me only note that “From Zero To Nothing” stands out as a modern/metal darkwave hymn. My main objection towards “The Pulse of Awakening” is that it lacks a bit in coherence, which also affects negatively its memorability. Since some amount of incoherence is acceptable if fresh ideas are expressed, and that is what Sybreed are doing here, I wouldn't insist on that. Time will show whether deathwave will become a real genre, and Sybreed one of its pioneers. In the meantime, check this album out!
