Review: SINNERS – no one can fake my blood – by lynch.
My journey into the metal world as a youngster started with Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, and Slipknot. After that I started getting into mainstream symphonic black metal like Dimmu Borgir and Cradle of Filth and then my life took a hard turn into Weebsville. While there’s plenty of great music coming out of glorious Nihon, I was at a stage in my life where if it was even remotely rock and it was from Japan that was all the reason I needed to listen, so there was plenty of crap in my old visual-kei sketchy download site library.
Of course, there was also plenty of music that was good enough to have really stuck with me, even after I had grown up enough to realize that Japan was not the real-life version of anime. There are the obvious names to pay attention to like Dir En Grey and Miyavi, but the Nagoya scene was especially full of well-written music by great bands. The Nagoya scene was also noted for having darker themes with bands that put particular emphasis on composition instead of just visual appeal.
lynch. is one of those groups, with pretty strong ties to two other important Nagoya bands: their past support bassist used to be in the absolutely phenomenal but unfortunately long-disbanded goth rock group Deadman, and frontman/studio bassist Hazuki used to be the vocalist for the gritty thrash-and-death-influenced band DEATHGAZE.
The fact that lynch. is still going while their local comrades have either broken up or are in a years-long hiatus is a pretty strong testament to the band’s drive. The band’s thesis is to unite beautiful melodies with heavy music, which I think was best accomplished on their 2007 album The Avoided Sun on songs like “Liberation Chord” or “Anemone.” I have to admit that I was worried the band had gone in a radically new direction, though, after the first single for -SINNERS-, “Sorrow,” was released and it had seemed lynch. had dropped all pretense of the heavy music part. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, necessarily, but after years of having this great blend of metal and softer music it would at least be pretty surprising to drop the metal aspects of their composition.
Any doubts about lynch. continuing to be a metal band were completely gone by the third track, “BLOOD,” though. It’s impressive that Hazuki’s pipes are just as strong as ever as I’m pretty sure by now he’s approaching his mid-40s.
The next track, “BLACK OUT DESTROY” is where this album really starts to hit hard, though, and I’m glad to say that lynch. is just as good as they ever were, and able to switch between roaring intensity and beautiful melody with grace. The next track, “KALEIDO” is a great showcase of how the band likes to use looping pedals and reverb to create ethereal textures to carry Hazuki’s melodic singing.
While lynch. has a history of re-recording songs for different singles and albums, I am a little confused why they decided to redo “THE WHIRL” from 2005’s Underneath the Skin, especially when it had already been redone for 2007’s The Buried. Even more confusing, the song isn’t much different from the first two takes. If anything it almost feels more like a remaster of the original, as the instrumental parts have been beefed up and given more low-end and presence.
I’m glad lynch. has kept up their output, especially since -SINNERS- turned out to be one of their heaviest records to date, especially on the second half. My one complaint is that a lot of the vocals were double-tracked in a way that makes Hazuki’s harsh vocals have an almost artificial timbre to them at times. I have no doubt, though, that this will end up being another classic in a discography full of classics for fans of the band.
SINNERS – no one can fake my blood- is out through King Record Company
