SYMBIOSIS are a 5 Piece Crust Punk/Sludge/Post-Metal Band from Frostburg, MD USA
The members are
Caleb Davis: guitar
John Haylor: bass
Adam Labutka: vocals
Brendan Stephens: guitar, vocals
Kyle Wagoner: drums
SYMBIOSIS play a hard-hitting blend of Crust Punk/Sludge/Post-Metal music. Which makes these guys truly stand out from the crowd for them to demand your attention and respect.
Well SYMBIOSIS fuse their brilliant blend of Sludge/Post-Metal music with modern day comic book mythology. Mainly Marvel Classic Superhero – Spider-Man.
SYMBIOSIS have actually managed to write an album around the Spider-Man mythology. Mainly focusing on his origins and his battles with Venom to brilliant and startling effect. Their album – “The Alien” is a 7-Song 40 minute tale of Spider-Man you have never heard before.
And fusing it with Crust Punk/Sludge/Post-Metal is a truly highly original idea. The album features excerpts from the comic books and lesser known Spider-Man mythology to provide an unflinching and deeply unsettling portrayal of everyone’s favourite web-slinger.
The music is dark, haunting and sometimes very disturbing when mixed with news excerpts of the battles between Spider-Man and Venom. Or when Venom is trying to come into his own existence.
The album is brilliantly produced and put together. It features superb Sludge/Post-Metal riffs joined with a great DIY Crust Punk vibe. The vocals are match brilliantly against people or witnesses explaining what is happening in the background.
“Midtown High”, “Ingram Street” and “Eddie’s Song” are all standout tracks on this amazing album that get the tone brilliantly right of a superhero in battle with his inner demons and VENOM trying to break free.
The lyrics are simply superb. Capturing the feel, tension and action of an action packed Spider-Man comic but mainly this time it’s for adults. It does have many bleak moments and does end on a sad note.
I am not the biggest Spider-Man fan but this album does everything right that the recent Sam Raimi films didn’t. It has took SYMBIOSIS one album and 40 mins of superb music to get the Spider-Man legend spot on where Sam Raimi failed in his 3 overblown films. (OK number two was a great film but the other two sucked.)
Imagine if Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios hired David Fincher to make Spider-Man well this album would be the result. Or would be the soundtrack to accompany that version.
I originally bought this brilliant album back in Nov 2011 and at first I thought it was OK and nothing more. But more and more I have been going back to it and discovering it’s such a brilliant album with a deeply thrilling story to tell of a well known comic book legend.
Plus mixing it with my favourite genres of music just spoke to me more every time I listened to it. Now I think this is a brilliant and quite frankly a classic of the genre that not many people know about.
I hope more people check out SYMBIOSIS as they are missing out on something special. This is a brilliant release from a truly original band. With this being the 1st part of a trilogy I can’t wait to hear the next instalments.
The musicianship on the release is absolutely superb and needs to be heard as loud as you can. Full of hard hitting and heavy riffs with a truly original premise that makes SYMBIOSIS a band to be reckoned with.
All in all a simply phenomenal release. And one of the best debut releases I have ever heard.
You can buy this outstanding album from the guys BandCamp Page. Check out this great band out now!!!
You can download a brilliant free track called "Ingram Street" played live from their BandCamp Page to see if you like what you hear.
A brilliant album and definitely recommended.
Check out this amazing band below:
BandCamp
