“Diversity”: a term thrown around a lot these days, usually in a positive context. A “buzzword”. You’ve probably heard your boss say it during an important meeting, or seen it written somewhere in the company biography of a buffet restaurant, and just accepted it at face value. But diversity isn’t always a good thing. Syren City’s latest EP, Escape, is intentionally diverse, but doesn’t have the effect they would have desired.
To start, opener ‘Bleed’ screams of a more serious The Blackout – a track the Welshmen could have mustered up while suffering through Dry January – whereas ‘Our Disease’ pinches a little too much character from Billy Talent. Drawing from two distinctive bands polarises their ideas, and it takes less than 7 minutes for this approach to dilute their identity. It doesn’t get any more unique in the remaining songs, either, and chucking in some unclean vocals and sludgy riffs in the latter stages only emphasises the identity crisis.
In striving to be different, Syren City have produced 5 solid, but disconnected tracks. They do master the essentials of anthemic Rock – killer choruses, gang vocals and an abundance of infectious hooks – which keeps the EP in one piece, but far more would need to be done to hold a full-length album together. In order to move from the back of the queue to the front of it, Syren City will need to show off more of themselves than their many idols. In other words, they need to specialise.
