Hexxed (NI) | ‘The Synapse Collision’

Hexxed really have changed immeasurably from the group that once spat out the death-thrash attack of ‘Perish the Sacred’ nearly a decade ago.

By the time their excellent ‘Where Gods Look Away’ 7″ arrived a few years back, it looked like they were making a serious go of it, fulfilling their potential as on of the most talented bands in the Irish metal underground.

Working an impressive style mainly inspired by Death (’Spiritual Healing’ era) and with touches of more progressive metal, the departure of vocalist Ciaran Tracey three years ago resulted in the band quickly sinking from view again.

What followed was a period of frankly cryptic and intermittent updates from the group. Spanning a period of years, they  outlined that a new line-up would be going down a new, much more left-field route. Anticipation and eyebrows slowly rose as it looked like a proper album and band incarnation was becoming a reality.

‘The Synapse Collision’ certainly fulfills that promise of being very different from the band’s previous material. This is hardly surprising considering the band’s almost complete revamp, but for the Metal faithful this is going to be a hard record come to terms with.

While ‘Engaging the Flow’ kicks off in pretty convincing style, hammering out inventive riffs powerfully, the new vocal approach is harder to warm to. But it’s the collection of fragmented tracks that follow that cause the most consternation.

Noise samples are one thing, but the brash, bleeping vistas that are provided here are nothing short of irritating. They’re mixed far higher than the guitars in the previous song, which gives the record the vibe of demo quality sound rather than anything like a full mix.

Combined with constant disembodied samples from some enthusiastic-sounding lecturer, we’re left with precious little to really get the teeth into. It seems more like the concept of the album is being frantically promoted, but to the detriment of the songs that make it up.

The vocal stylings are a particular issue. There are multiple vocalists at work here, but it’s very hard to distinguish who is singing what. Things coast along nicely when a simple deep growl is used, but the Layne Stayley-style yowlings in ‘Rewire’ are unadvised to say the least.

The group clearly are well able to fire out the riffs when required, and can shred and chug like demons when they want. It’s the composition that’s the issue here, with the fragmenting of songs that sound like they could make up one track into several tracks which is odd and jarring. Claiming that’s the aim doesn’t make it any less tiresome.

After the hodge-podge of the second half of the album, the straight forward assault of ‘Tricloptics’ is a welcome development.

Again, those clean crooning vocals in the the mid-section are horrific, sounding more like they should inhabit a singer-songwriter’s night in the local than anywhere else, but some extremely tasty guitar leads arrive swiftly to save the day.

Rapidly changing with every track, the record sounds calculated to be off-the-wall at times. As such, a healthy whack of pretension is hard to avoid. When they decide they want to rock hard and play songs, the group clearly have it.

However, at this stage, hard graft and genuine crafting of the tracks into something grander will be required before they can claim to have really attained the misty, conceptual level for which they’re aiming. Still, there’s no denying this is an interesting record with plenty of character.

Its flaws are there to be seen, but so are positive factors that glare just as brightly. The next release will be real deal-breaker for Hexxed 2.0.

3 / 5 - Lorcan Archer ::: 26/08/10