THE SYNN REPORT – A 30TH ANNIVERSARY ROUND-UP

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Dec 052012
 

(NCS writer Andy Synn pauses after the 30th installment of THE SYNN REPORT to take a look back at the first two years of the series.)

Ok, so we’ve now had 30 ‘official’ entries in The Synn Report. I hope that a good number of you have discovered new bands and gone out and shown your support for them, buying music, merch, gig tickets, etc.

I thought, since the year (and the world!!!) is coming to an end, it might be a good time to provide a quick one-stop summation of all the previous entries, for those of you who maybe missed a couple, or for new devotees of the site who have yet to encounter the earlier editions and the bands contained therein.

Did you know that the genesis for The Synn Report was not entirely down to me? There’s a post that I consider ‘The Synn Report: Year Zero” which was written by Islander himself, in response to my recommendation of a particular band. That post is included here, as I think it’s an important foundation stone in the genesis of The Synn Report, and because I think the band in question are utterly phenomenal.

So there we go, after the jump there’s a tiny entry on each band from each edition of The Synn Report, with a short genre description and a re-iteration of the “Recommended for fans of:” section. Which ones did you miss? Which ones should you give another shot to? Click each one to be linked to the appropriate article, where you’ll find the full write-ups and sample songs from each release! Continue reading »

THE SYNN REPORT, PART 25: THUS DEFILED

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Jul 062012
 

(Andy Synn finishes his unofficial UK week of reviews with this latest installment of THE SYNN REPORT, focusing on the UK’s Thus Defiled.)

Recommended for fans of: Dissection, Immortal, Absu

Black as night, black as pitch, blacker than the foulest witch… That truly sums up the ethos of Thus Defiled, an arcane amalgamation of death metal filth and black metal fury.

Formed back in 1992 and with four albums to their name – the most recent of which was released back in 2007 – the group have been largely inactive in recent years, which is a shame, as the world needs more of the musical magick that is unleashed when the members of Thus Defiled come together.

From their beginnings as a raw, death-influenced black metal act, with a slightly lo-fi, but still pretty clear sound, they evolved over time – as all things must – into a darker, more occult proposition, ditching the corpse-paint and gaining some solid thrash and death metal influences in the process. They incorporated these influences into a framework of archly heretical black metal without losing their carefully crafted sense of identity, mastering their art and forcing sound to serve their purpose, rather than to define it. Continue reading »