Sinister are a band that really should need no introduction. Forming in 1988 and releasing albums fairly consistently, they are revered as one of the greatest death metal bands to have spawned from the Netherlands. Although they've been releasing albums fairly frequently, I must admit their output has been really patchy since those 90s masterpieces, especially with their style of death metal growing stale. So what do Sinister have to offer so far into their career?
A return to form. Sort of. It's definitely one of the better albums they've done post-90s and they seem to be riding on the right track. However, their US style of death metal, reminiscent of bands such as Monstrosity or Deicide, while being something that would have flourished in the 90s nowadays feels like a mere nostalgia trip. That being said, it's one hell of a nostalgia trip, they offer a great slab of old school fury, packed full with thrashing riffage and fantastic drumming as well as... synths? I can't really say they add much to the album but they certainly don't detract from it, in fact they somewhat remind me of the titans Vital Remains. The riffs are very tight, often catchy and with a good sense of groove, while the leads usually go into this melodic and atmospheric territory often pairing up with the aforementioned synths. You can tell that this was made by veterans of the style bursting with nostalgia for the golden era of florideath. Everything on here is also produced very well, clean and modern although not in a squeaky-clean way that would impair the experience, I feel they've done a really good job at making it sound modern while still sounding sharp enough and packing a punch. All songs are fairly well written and the whole thing stays very consistent in quality, never dipping but also never really having a track that stands out. So what's the issue here?
Well there aren't many. The most notable issue for me was the vocal delivery of former-drummer now-vocalist Aad Kloosterwaard, sounding really generic, lacking in variety, and being overly brutal and unintelligible which is a pet peeve for me in death metal. Another one is length, 40 minutes is for the most part the golden ratio for this style of death metal but they drag it out to nigh-50 as well as having the average track length be five and a half minutes. Still, these aren't anything major, the vocals fit in just fine and the riffs mostly make up for the long runtime. The biggest factor here is that it's really just nothing new, just another nostalgic trip to 90s florideath. Overall it's still well-executed and at the end of the day that's all that matters, right?
In a way Sinister remind me of the path modern Deicide has been taking, the difference being that Deicide have been making decent one-listen albums whereas Syncretism is one that I probably would at some point return to. If you're nostalgic for florideath this is well worth a listen or two but standing next to the bands former achievements or even contemporary releases from newer similarly 90s nostalgic acts like Necrot, Skeletal Remains, etc. it just appears as another dot.