March 2020 Feature Release - The Sphere Edition

It's now March which of course means that we'll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we're asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter.

This month's feature release for The Sphere is 2007's second album from Swiss cyber metal outfit Sybreed entitled "Antares". Don't know a lot about the cyber metal subgenre? It's not all that different to your traditional industrial metal model only it's more melodic, less repetitive & incorporates elements of EBM such as danceable beats. See what you think! You may just like it!

Immediately when I threw this on, I was reminded of something, and I couldn't put my finger on it until the third or fourth track. Sybreed, at least on this album, sounds like what modern In Flames should have sounded like if they knew how to write interesting riffs and melodies that complemented the softer Melodic Death Metal approach. While I don't really care for modern In Flames, especially compared to their classic material, I never thought it was terrible, so this album was a treat for me. I'm already a pretty big fan of heavier electronic music, like Darksynth for instance, so hearing well written riffs with complex electronic beats really resonates well with me. There are some tracks in here that feel pretty uninspired though, like "Isolate" and "Permafrost", but overall it maintains a solid quality throughout the whole thing. I wish it would lean into the EDM side a bit more, especially towards the end where it just feels like more of the same Melodic Death riff over and over, but I still like what's going on here. 

3.5/5, but it may get repetitive if I end up listening to it again.