(This is DGR‘s review of the debut album by the German band Synaptic, which was released in January by Lifeless Chasm Records.)

Dwelling in the earlier part of the year has so far presented a handful of pleasant surprises but none came out of left field quite like the first full-length from Germany’s Synaptic, a tech-death, thrash, and melodeath hybrid that has resulted in a sub-thirty-five minute blistering whirlwind of an album known as Enter The Void.

Synaptic have existed in one embryonic form or another for over twenty-plus years of on-and-off activity but up to this point have only had one release to their name, a twenty-seven minute EP dating back to 2008 entitled Distortion Of Senses. Since then, the whole lineup has changed save for one main project-driver, and it seems as if the entire sound of the group has shifted from those days. It means that in a lot of ways Enter The Void is a full relaunch of Synaptic – now a three piece – and is the sort of release that makes it seem as if the seventeen years between releases were put to good use.

Even though there’s only an eight-minute difference between Synaptic‘s full-length and the aforementioned EP, there is a lot more packed within those thirty some-odd minutes than you might expect. Continue reading »