Probably done by Syrkander.
Style: Progressive metal, symphonic metal, death metal, gothic metal (mixed vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Persefone, Aeternam, Aquilus, MIDI instruments, Peter Steele-esque vocals
Country: Chile
Release date: 10 January, 2025
Unreal Engine 5 did to game development what Bandcamp did to the indie music scene. No longer did you as a budding young artist need to secure funding and a space to develop your craft. You could just do it from your bedroom. Like a game created in UE5, you too can now create a polished sounding record with programmed drums and MIDI instruments. I mean, just look at most bedroom djent bands that release a few songs every few months. Insane amounts of polish and sound quality, but you look a little too long, and you get the same problem with games developed in UE5: they’ve all got a similar feel, a similar graphical art style, or in the case of music in the prog sphere, uniform identity.
Syrkander, surprisingly enough, is a bedroom project that’s not a djent or terrible atmoblack band. Instead, the one-man Chilean act opts for a heavily symphonic style à la Dessiderium, with all the chugs of a Gojira-clone and an attempt at the grandeur of Aquilus. All of these prior bands are successful at finding identity and a unique sound, there’s none of that to be found here. I hear a lot of prog-death staples on this album (i.e. mixed vocals, trem-picked riffs), but all of it lacks any serious substance whatsoever. The very glue that holds this behemoth of an album together is the fact that it just refuses to stop its over EIGHTY-MINUTE pulverization of my eardrums.
In the very wise words of me, you create something original when all your influences become so compounded on top of eachother that simultaneously all and nothing of them remain of them in your work. I hear some classic power metal DNA in Syrkander’s inbred formula here, as exemplified by ‘Salvame’, in which our band leader does his best Dan “The Man” Swanö impression over a one-note chuggy-chuggy riff. I also hear a bit of Persefone’s rhythmic fuckery and (attempts at) flourishes, but this remains the chief complaint I take with Via Internam: a complete lack of cohesion whatsoever. Syrkander doesn’t do much in the riff department, with much of it becoming layered mush underneath the deluge of leads and symphonic cushioning. Whenever Syrkander can, he will make sections go on for far longer than need be for padding’s sake, with opener ‘Become Darkness’ flaunting one riff for all three-and-a-quarter minutes of its overlong runtime.
Syrkander’s ambition mix with his identity crisis is also apparent in his vocal styles. While I commend the effort of having both cleans and harshes on a one-man album, Edge of Sanity this is not. ‘Feverish’ sees him trying a low-register, Type-O Negative-esque croon that just sounds like he’s drunk and slurring his words. However, this doesn’t really make a return anywhere on the album, instead opting for his Dan Swanö impression for most of the album. In fact, I’m not even sure he sounds like the Witherscape frontman so much as he sounds like a mid-2000s alt metal vocalist trying to sing a ballad. An alt metal influence might explain the simple riffing, but again, I can’t tell what sparked this man’s neurons together in the first place even after I’ve listened. While some symphonic parts are cool, such as the choir on ‘Furia Divinia’, none of it feels earned. There are no big builds and even bigger releases on Via Internam, just eighty-minutes of songs floating in a pool of their own gelatinous mass.
I have barely mentioned the symphonic aspect of Syrkander, because it may as well not be there. Nearly every song begins and ends with some kind of string or synth, and none of it is used interestingly. The Chilean can’t decide if he wants it to be used in the background for atmosphere, like Emperor’s classic In the Nightside Eclipse or to have it be front and center like most modern symphonic bands. On ‘Dhet Khom Uhsal’, its absence is sorely missed with the one time Syrkander wants to create a semi-interesting riff, which would go perfectly with a few string flutters. This is, of course, before he repeats said section too many times.
Like my UE5 game analogy, Syrkander is something that was made with likely good intentions and no way of reaching them. This is ambitious for a one-man band to accomplish, but not everyone can be Alex Haddad (Dessiderium). Instead, Via Internam is a shoddily put together mess of symphonic flourishes and riffs that are so bare bones he may as well have opted to make an album without guitar entirely. I can only give Syrkander credit for trying, but he has a long way to go before attempting another epic of this standing. If it were up to me, I think he should start from ground zero. Figure out what went wrong here so as not to pull a Culak. Also, lose the spoken word and evil laughs: they’re not helping your cause here.
Recommended tracks: Furia Divinia, Dhet Khom Uhsal, Nemsis
You may also like: Culak, Ben Baruk
Final verdict: 3/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Syrkander is:
– Syrkander (probably everything?)
