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If you hear about side projects or even alleged “all-star bands”, you cannot help but roll your eyes, but don’t jump to conclusions when it comes to Sinsaenum, an extreme metal beast that is, from the get go, bound to turn heads. This sextet may draw its sonic power from renowned names, but these are first and foremost friends joining forces when it seemed the most logical thing to do.
Frenchman Frédéric Leclercq, virtuoso bass player of London-based Power Metallers DragonForce, concocted the acoustic nightmare on Sinsaenum’s first album. “I’ve been a death metal fan ever since and wrote some of these songs in 1998 already, so it’s something I always wanted to do,” says the multi-instrumentalist, who sticks to the guitar on this venture. “There was never the right time though, nor did I find the proper people to pull it off.”
Eventually, Frédéric started looking for a six-string companion on his journey into the darkest discipline of metal. When he asked compatriot Stéphane Buriez, a French scene icon with Loudblast for 30 years, the front man, who is an accomplished producer and incredibly versatile player himself, immediately agreed.
However, it was only after an unexpected message from the US when things began to take shape. “Joey Jordison sent an SMS to ask what I was up to, so I told him about those death metal songs.” After the former Slipknot and current VIMIC drum wizard had heard the demos, he wanted to know whom Frédéric had recruited to beat the skins. As there was nobody yet, he eagerly suggested adding his own ferocious style. Joey also had the idea for the name Sinsaenum, a fitting combination of the words “sin” and “insane”.
When it came to choose a voice for the trio’s godless tunes, it actually ended up with two, the main criterion being “death metal with a clear enunciation.” The first was no other than Attila Csihar from Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem and drone masters SUNNO))), another long-time acquaintance of Leclercq’s and Jordison’s too, notorious for his many registers ranging from tortured screams to throat singing. Sean Zatorsky from NWoAHM titans Dååth and Chimaira became the other vocalist, a touring pal of the guys with a growl both aggressive and articulate in the tradition of Morbid Angel’s David Vincent.
With another countryman of Frédéric’s – Heimoth, the brain of eclectic extremists Seth – completing the picture on bass, the material for Sinsaenum’s full-length was rounded off and perpetuated at different places. “We recorded all the guitars and Attila’s vocals in France,” reveals Leclercq. “Joey and Sean did their parts in Iowa and Atlanta respectively.”
The end result is titled “Echoes of the Tortured” and was mixed in Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden, where Jens Bogren (Opeth, Kreator, Devin Townsend et al.) put the finishing touches to 21 tracks that are – in one word – expansive: rife with head-splitting riffs, challenging rhythms and structures, but at once infectious, not least thanks to the powerful yet transparent production. Despite Sinsaenum’s traditional attitude, it doesn’t sound retro by any means. “That’s something I was trying to avoid”, stresses the leader. “It should not come across as nostalgic but achieve some continuity based on the music I grew up with.”
“Compare it to an epic soundtrack”, he continues. “I wish to take the listener on a journey. Everything is interconnected, so you may pick particular songs, but it’s meant to be listened to as a whole. Today with iTunes and whatnot, people are choosy, whereas this is supposed to be an all-encompassing experience, forcing you to take it in as one piece of art, which is because I come from a time when you still put on a record and stuck to it till it was over.”
The mastermind created a storyline to which all members contributed lyrically, just like everybody added their own touches to the instrumental side of things. The tale told is classic in every way, matching sinister songs that reconcile different schools of death and black metal, all flanked by cinematic interludes to add to the film-like character. Frédéric elaborates: “I am not religious by any account but like the imagery of horns and hell, so we don’t propagate any beliefs here, and even the satanic imagery is restricted to one song only, that being ‘Inverted Cross’. Take it as a pure narrative about darkness, chaos and evil in the vein of horror books and flicks.”
As if to underline Sinsaenum’s purely fictional approach, a jangly interlude like ‘Lullaby’ harks back to the heydays of Italian Giallo and iconic directors like Dario Argento, not to forget the striking music accompanying their works. “I love the band Goblin that wrote some of those scores. In fact, I was messing around with my own soundtrack project, thinking of a horror movie that didn’t exist yet. This composition stems from that time.”
Correspondingly, the group filmed clips for two tracks in an old Hungarian powerplant, “violent and grim stuff,” according to Leclercq, “really gory and probably broadcast for 18+ viewers only”. This especially goes for ‘Splendor & Agony’ while ‘Army of Chaos’ comes in black and white, fitting both the anthemic lyrics as well as the music, which Frédéric describes as “Rammstein meets Satyricon”.
Elsewhere on “Echoes of the Tortured”, we have the sluggishness of ‘Dead Souls’, the eruptive blast that is ‘Sacrifice’ and the almost Dissection-like melodies in ‘Condemned to Suffer’. Then, there’s the German title ‘Anfang des Albtraumes’, including a hair-raising middle section for which Attila fell back to his native language Hungarian, or the particularly catchy ‘The Forgotten One’, also the b-side of a strictly limited advance single on vinyl. Its a-side features ‘Death Is the Beginning’, one of the composer’s favourites and distinctly old school, an apt introduction to the band.
For that’s what Sinsaenum really are, a firm unit. “When we met in Budapest to shoot the videos, it all made sense. We spent some time rehearsing and it clicked, so I don’t want to call it a project any more. We feel a strong, unique bond between us, as if we’d been together for a long time. Now, that’s what we’re going to be.” With each member being a complete musician in his own right, they need not prove anything to anybody but themselves. For all their adeptness, they still sound like angry, hungry young men, maybe because they took risks leaving their respective comfort zones to display more of a holistic stance.
“It was long hard work”, concludes Frédéric. “I wrote the album from the perspective of a fan; it’s nothing but pure dark death metal and neither calculated nor pretentious, something you hardly hear nowadays. People might know me for a different style, but ‘Echoes of the Tortured’ comes from my heart and guts. Hopefully, this is where it’s going to reach you as well!”
