Extreme geeks everywhere rejoice as for the first time in nine years, tangential Watford sextet SikTh returns with a new product. Latest mini-album Opacities (Peaceville) seems a little more influenced by the vocal melodies of natural descendants TesseracT, though their own progressive atmospheres remain in evidence.

hankfully, despite the occasionally touching and sometimes overwrought emotions here, the savage switches and screams that have influenced so much in the emo and djent scenes during the last two decades are coursing through the set, almost as if to justify the band’s re-emergence. The mechanical creativity and robotic rants of ‘Philistine Philosophies’ might easily have been anachronistic but the personalities and character of the protagonists shine through the vocalising to make this over-mined sub-genre vital once again: the brutal drops and duelling screams as organic and fiery as they are entertaining.

Those twisting, intricate riffs baffle and confuse delightfully throughout the soaring ‘Under the Weeping Moon’, but some of the vocal lines here and in the otherwise poignant closer ‘Days Are Dreamed’ appear rough and tired, the harmonic cleans also seeming somewhat strained – the coruscating yells are staccato and feral enough to win the battle but it’s here that an occasional lack of spark is initially highlighted.

Overall this is a welcome return, albeit seeming a little dated, and it’s very possible that new fans of the scene spawned by these guys might find much to like. Borne out further by the more mature (I’m being kind here, you understand) sound of ‘Walking Shadows’, however, the bouncing, switching sound fails to fully disguise the lack of instantaneous chaos and youthful risk that this kind of music – Meshuggah excepted – largely demands. More energy and some fat-trimming please…

 

6.5/10

PAUL QUINN

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