Sinergy
Beware the Heavens (Nuclear Blast)
by Scott Hefflon
Reminds me of the band concocted for Wayne’s World: Tia Carrere, the Marc Somethingerother from Keel, and a couple other guys who look like they’ve been in bands, too. Sinergy is the all-star collaboration of Kimberly Goss, the pudgy-looking-but-really-not, Gothed-out-Margaret-Cho-lookin’ ex-back-up singer of Dimmu Borgir, guitarists Jesper Stromblad of In Flames and Alexi Liaho of Children of Bodom, bassist Sharlee D’Angelo of Mercyful Fate, and some drummer guy named Ronny Milianowitz. The band was meant to be a side project, but since Kim got booted (“eventual departure” sayeth the bio) from Dimmu, hell, she wants to make the thing “full-time.”
But I have no idea what that means to some of these EuroMetal bands… Yet with credentials like that, you’d, um, expect more from Beware the Heavens. Truth be told, it’s kind of a nice show-off vehicle for the guitarists (not that they really need to prove jack shit), but the melodies and the vocal projection are either trite or amusingly archaic. I mean ’80s melodic speedmetal/powermetal… Screaming riffs playfully lobbed about over rhythms Helloween scrapped a decade ago with “belted out” female vocals which never really grab you, kinda like most songs by Warlock or something. Sure, it’s a debut and Kim’s first time fronting, but she just doesn’t (yet, to be nice) have the presence needed to lead the band to victory. Basically, it sounds like a high school cover band with two mind-blowing guitarists who somehow (cute chick?, impressive resumes?) scored a record deal. Give ’em time and they might just rule the world, who knows? Final cut: the multi-layered vocal-only intro of “Beware the Heavens” is probably the dorkiest song-title-as-dramatic-opening I’ve heard in a long time. And (OK, one more cut), the power ballad that follows makes my skin itch like that song in Shocker where the ghost of the girlfriend gives her hunted-by-a-madman boyfriend her heart locket as protection.
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