Syndicate-Demo 2008

Self-produced
2008

Syndicate are a young band from Gloucester/York County, Virginia and they play some rather basic yet intense metal as reflected by the four songs on their demo. The influences here include huge doses of Pantera and Judas Priest and smaller doses of early Metallica, Exodus and Iron Maiden. All of the tracks are very straight forward and primarily medium to medium/fast in pace. They are far more about pumping in heaviness and intensity than they are about speed and that seems to work for them. Syndicate have a fairly strong grip on how to control and manipulate the pace to their advantage. The vocals are powerful yet clear enough to really add to the overall tightness. I also think they handle the guitar solos well and use them to their advantage instead of just sticking anything in which is a trap that a number of bands in this style of metal tend to fall into. They obviously are highly influenced by late 80's-early 90's metal, but they manage take their influences and build on them enough to add their own ideas into the mix. The production is overall decent for a demo although the drums might be a little too tin sounding on a track or two and the guitar could come a bit more into the foreground. I think they have a good start here and if they just keep pushing forward and trying to grow then they are certainly heading in the right direction.

http://www.myspace.com/syndicatemetal