Hello Metalheads! This is John back with another review for you today. This time it’s the album Enter the Void by Synaptic, it came out on January 15, 2025. This is a technical death metal album that features some very progressive parts.
The album is a project of three people. They are comprised of a guitarist, bass player and vocalist. The drums are programmed, at least that’s what the Bandcamp page says. If I didn’t read that it would’ve definitely fooled me for a person playing. The musicianship show on this record is really amazing. The bass player has some really outstanding parts throughout this entire album. The lines, riffs and grooves that this band manages to keep together is very impressive.
The first real track is Malfunctional Minds after the introduction which is called Sleepless Dreams. Malfunctional Minds features absolutely crazy bass playing, which is featured nicely in the mix and also quick solo passages. The first two minutes of the track is played at break neck speed and the riffs are melodic and technical. The drumming is perfectly crafted to keep the groove tight with blast beats and fast double bass drum galore. The vocals are all harsh vocals for this large section varying in high, lows and mids. The second half of this track starts off with a guitar laying down this almost Latin groove that has a very relaxed feel to it, before being joined by the bass and drums after. The vocals are singing as a change of pace. This groove is slowly changed by a nice instrumental section with a guitar solo that follows, very nice guitar and bass lines in this! Then it picks up pace even more and becomes more frantic before returning to the original riff.
The Lost Continent is the next track in this incredible album. It starts off with a very melodic yet angular riff. It has a very thrashy feel which is played with when the drummer plays halftime later in the passage. This song reminds me quite a bit of The Black Dahlia Murder in particular. It’s really excellent how this track is so heavy, technical and melodic at the same time. This whole album feels like a melodic death metal album with the technical aspects really ratcheted way up. The second half of this track gets started with a shredding guitar solo that is over blast beats. This section continued with the drums having double bass instead of blast beats. Shortly after this there is a slowed down section that features great counterpoint in the guitar and bass. Right after this there is a short transition section before the original melodies come back.
City of Glass is my favorite track from this masterpiece, it is by far the most dense on the album. It has all kinds of twists and turns and cranks up the progressive aspects of the song writing. It has a prologue track and also the epilogue track right after as the finale to the album. The prologue track Illucid Wake is this ambient track until the bass sets up a Latin groove that is eventually joined by the guitar with no distortion. There is even a marimba being played too. Then when City of Glass does start it piggy backs off of that feel but brings back the distortion and the whole band comes in. It starts with a sung vocal line, this moves into a thrashy melodic riff. The drummer once again plays a halftime feel during part of this section.
This is one album I truly can’t get enough of. If my third party music tracker is right, then I’m just an absolute ton of listens through in just two weeks of being released. In my opinion this is clearly a 10/10 album! I don’t see any weak points in this whole work. As always don’t forget to support this band and album if you like it! Links to their socials and streaming will be below!
https://lifelesschasm.bandcamp.com/album/enter-the-void
https://music.apple.com/us/album/enter-the-void/1781684444
https://www.instagram.com/synaptic.techdeath
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