Syndromy miast (Syndroms of the Cities)

Here we have some Polish Thrash/Speed Metal from the late 80s. In this prolific decade for this kind of music it wasn’t easy to be noticed, not even in Europe, where many bands were already releasing amazing masterpieces of the genre (Destruction, Sodom, Kreator, Coroner, Onslaught, Sabbat…). But it was even harder to shine releasing an album like this one…

Alastor’s “Syndroms of the Cities” is by no means a hidden treasure. Indeed I think it’s quite generic, and nothing makes the album outstanding. Multiple problems saturate this album from the beginning until the end. It lacks catchy and memorable choruses, originality in the songs (once you have heard one the rest are pretty much the same) and memorable head-banging riffs. In addition to all these problems, the songs are generally overlong and there’s a serious problem with the vocals.

Positive values? Not many. Every instrument is perfectly audible, so I would say that this is a good 80’s production. The only flaw is that seldom the vocals are too high and overshadow the guitars. What makes the album worthy of a listen is the guitar work. The rhythm guitars sound quite heavy, with a harsh tone and the music tends to be gloomy. This last feature is emphasized by the sometimes distant sound of the guitars. There are many long instrumental passages (there will be a deeper analysis of this after) where the guitar work is very good. In “Adrian’s Song”, for example, there is a tempo change around min 4 where they go from mid-paced to fast, then back to mid-paced again and finally they throw in a couple of new killer riffs changing completely the song. All that passage until the singer comes back to screw everything, and unexpectedly end the song, is excellent. The best song in here is possibly “O.N.A. 88-10-21”, and no, I don’t know what does that mean. I think this is where they put their best effort. Good speed metal, with the best solos in the album and some of the riffs are even catchy! Tempo changes mentioned before are also a highlight, and these keep the album from being a disaster. Changes are tastefully performed and they keep interesting and alive (not always) the instrumental passages. The ones in Epitaph are enjoyable and clearly reminiscent of Kreator’s “Blind Faith”, though, they lack the aggressiveness and power of the German band.

Negatives? A huge load. Let’s start with the vocals. They are high-pitched and harsh. These can be good qualities if they fit well with the music and transmit some aggression (see the piercing vocals of Mille in “Terrible Certainty” or the ones by Scott Watts in “Soldiers of Misfortune”). But this is not the case. Vocals sound monotone and weak along the release, and they seem totally disconnected from the music. The perfect example of this is “Adrian’s Son”. It seems like the singer is trying to catch the music in the fast moments, and when the music slows down the sensation is that the singer is stretching the words to wait, so everything regarding the vocals sounds very… forced and artificial. The last verses in this song are especially horrible. Even if the guitars are the strongest value of “Sindroms of the Cities”, they have also bad moments. The sound of the leads is sometimes a bit weak, so there are few moments where the singer comes in and they sound a bit buried, like in the title track. The riffs are generic and sometimes too repetitive (see the “Ides of March”, which is the most boring track in the album), giving to the whole album a “single chunk” nature. Most of the solos are too short and they neither build any amazing melody nor are memorable. The bass and the drums are generic by all means, and this fact doesn’t help at all. Even if the bass is perfectly audible, it doesn’t help to make the music better, so it’s constantly present, but is totally irrelevant. This wouldn’t be a problem (remember that the bass is out in “…And Justice For All”, and is still a masterpiece) if the songs were catchy, but it’s not the case. The songs are overlong and the vocals/instrumental timing ratio is very unbalanced. They also have too many acoustic passages which bring Sepultura’s “Beneath The Remains” to my mind, but these are overused and not as wisely as the Brazilian band did. If we add this to weak vocals + non-memorable nature of the music = background Thrash music. That’s it. You could hear to this album a dozen times and afterwards you wouldn’t remember any of the songs in here.

After all of the criticism above you may think this album deserves a 20 or 30%, but no. I don’t think this album deserves to fail. Even if it’s not an exciting or memorable album, it doesn’t mean that is unpleasant. There are good moments in here (“Epitaph”, “Adrian’s Son” and “O.N.A. 88-10-21”) and it’s ok as background thrash music. Of course if you have a limited budget this will never make your collection, as there are billions of better albums out there, but you won’t leave a garlicky body after listening to this one. Therefore, my suggestion is: give it a chance!