French duo S.Y.G.M.A have crafted a powerful and intriguing metal sound that combines elements like groove and melodic hardcore and they describe as “intense, unique and sophisticated.”
S.Y.G.M.A was founded by Farid Benyarou (lyrics and vocals) and Vince Trombini (composer, guitars, programming and production). The duo have been involved in music together for years, including playing in a variety of fusion, punk, goth and tribal-metal bands, including D-Fé, Komptoir Chaos, 23h17 and D-Symetry.
But, as Vince tells us: “We eventually got together again to create S.Y.G.M.A, our most personal project. We decided to self-produce the music we’d like to listen to, with the aim of expressing our creative sense and creating our own sound. The sound of S.Y.G.M.A could be a mix of different styles of metal, groove, hardcore, melodic with a 90’s background turned into a modern style.”
Our latest taste of this is their fourth single The Countdown, which was released in October. It opens up with a spinning guitar riff and building “tick-tock” vocals, which drop into a chunky riff and screamed vocals. Dual echoey high-pitched vocals come in, then heavy drums and guitars support growling vocals before another spinning riff under big screams of “let’s go.” The pace drops down with chunky bass as the slightly trippy high-pitched vocals return, before flowing into a chorus that ends with a driving riff before a heavy outro.
“The reception has been good, from both professionals and the public. People are usually surprised by the power of the song and the universe we are trying to create. For anyone who hasn’t listened yet, they should be expecting a catchy groovy song with a touch of prog and death metal.” Check it out in the video here:
That follows on from three more singles, including the groovy A New Day, which was released in March, and Trouble and Voices. All of the songs are accompanied by really cool animated videos, including this one for A New Day.
S.Y.G.M.A’s music is inspired by bands like Pantera, Bad Brains, Suicidal Tendencies, Bodycount, Korn, Faith no More, Hellyeah and Lacuna Coil and musicians like Jimmy Page, Tony Iommy, Jerry Cantrell and Steve Vai.
And on what inspires them to write music, Vince told us: “The first inspiration is the passion for guitar, metal and this type of production. Then we are inspired by science fiction, dystopian worlds, society, and our current world, relationships with people, and social networks. It’s a mix between these dystopias that are getting closer and closer to reality that inspires us and it’s the universe that we try to transcribe on a metal background.”
There’s more to come from S.Y.G.M.A, including two new singles that will be ready to produce in early 2025. And Vince adds: “Our sound is evolving because we self-produced our first three singles, and for our last single, The Countdown, we trusted the French sound engineer Etienne Pelossoff for the mastering, who should also master our next two singles. Even though we release singles, each song was written as part of the same album, so we think it’s better to listen to our four singles in a row to get a better look at our universe.”
You can follow S.Y.G.M.A on Instagram, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and YouTube.
Listen to S.Y.G.M.A and more new music on our Spotify playlist GigRadar Metal
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