SONIC SYNDICATE: We Rule the Night

Produced by Toby Wright
Released: July 30, 2010

In the cynical world of the music industry, it's more often the band that can fake it and look the best that gets the break. This is clearly the case for Sonic Syndicate. Nuclear Blast evidently saw the potential in the band's generic, crowd-pleasing metalcore mimicry with added eye-candy factor courtesy of bassist Karin Axelsson and quickly bankrolled them, talking them up as one of their next big things. The departure of melodic vocalist Roland Johansson has done nothing to slow the band down but it does seem to have delivered an opportunity to give their sound a pretty big overhaul, one that even Johansson seems somewhat bemused by. There's good reason for this, because We Rule the Night is pretty bad.


New English-born recruit Nathan Biggs has said that he likes singing melodies, and that's an admirable thing for a vocalist. But the band's grab for accessibility on this album is so contrived and obvious that they've actually crossed the line into the realms of pop-laced rock. That in itself wouldn't be such a bad thing if the results weren't so diabolical. Let's face it, as a metalcore band Sonic Syndicate was only ever average at best, no more than strictly generic second-tier tryhards that came across like In Flames by way of Bullet for My Valentine. As if that wasn't horrible enough, they've decided to add really bad melodic emo into the mix now as well. The end result of this is something like what would happen if Linkin Park had really bad sex with My Chemical Romance, and if you can picture that in your mind without going insane then you should take that as a warning not to subject yourself to We Rule the Night.

The melodies and hooks are pretty insidious, but the music as a whole is just hollow, boring and annoying. In the end, if this band didn't have Karin Axelsson, they'd have nothing.

1. Beauty and the Freak
2. Revolution, Baby
3. Turn it Up
4. My Own Life
5. Burn This City
6. Black and Blue
7. Miles Apart
8. Plans are for People
9. Leave Me Alone
10. Break of Day
11. We Rule the Night

Rating: 15%