### Synapses: Expiation

#### 23/08/12 || Smalley

Hey, another stub record from another Italian act; is it mediocre…? You betcha! This debut full-length doesn’t have the typical prob I usually have with other Eye-talian bands, though, since I generally find that their metal lacks enough balls; not so with Synapses, as they are pretty brutal. “Brutal” in the same kind of sense as, say, brutal DM like Dying Fetus or a Suffocation is, which is to say, not in a good sense at all. “Expiation” may have a glossier production than those bands typically like to use, but it adds little to the album, and what it does add isn’t enough to make up for hook-less riffing, aimless, disjointed, annoyingly “relentless” songwriting, generic growling, and so forth. Unless you’re really, really huge on this kind of DM, you just shouldn’t bother sitting through this one.

5,5/10: Kind of sorry for that Eye-talian remark though, couldn’t think of anything else to write that would’ve been less offending. Oh well!