voila_la_scorie Suspyre is a symphonic metal band from New Jersey whose career has spanned fourteen years and four albums. I came across their 2012 album on iTunes a couple of years ago and decided to check them out. As the latest album at the time, the self-titled fourth release, was only available as a download, I bought the previous album “When Time Fades…” from 2008.

In the beginning, I couldn’t really warm up to the music. It is highly complex with a strong blend of symphonic metal and progressive metal, lots of quick changes in tempo and time signature, and a fairly strong presence of either string symphony or at times keyboards that emulate the string symphony sound. The vocals were the most difficult part for me, not because they are in any way bad but they just didn’t completely appeal to me. Other reviewers have described Clay Barton’s pipes as powerful and given them approval and praise, so it is just a case of personal preference here. I prefer the sound of James LaBrie or Russell Allen myself. Still, listening to the album two times over again recently, I found myself getting into the songs more and accepting Barton’s timbre.

If you are unfamiliar with Suspyre, then the best comparison I can make based on my limited experience with symphonic metal is that their music on this album is closest to Symphony X’s “V: The New Mythology Suite”. As I expect this band is less familiar to a lot of people, I’ll give a quick rundown of the songs.

“Possession / The Negative”. It opens with a repetition of ascending and descending arpeggios and heavy guitars soon join in. It’s a symphonic metal track with abrupt meter changes. There’s organ and an instrument that might be a vibraphone or xylophone can be heard at one time.

“Evolutions”. More of the symphonic approach with some thrashier parts and blast beats, there’s a robotic voice near the beginning and at the end, where it announces “Let the destruction begin”.

“Lighted Endrhyme”. One of the first songs I picked out when I first got the album, there’s a symphony that begins the track and later either the symphony or a keyboard sound like one can be heard. There’s a beautiful cathedral choir at the end.

“Maniac Main Point Check”. This is a short instrumental with a really cool guitar riff. It stands out because much of the guitar work on this album is too complex for simple heavy riffs. It sounds great here!

“Siren (one last breath)”. This song is longer and has a slower beginning and ending with some clean guitar and the vocals attempting more passionate singing. I don’t feel the effect is captured quite well enough. Of course the music progresses into heavier territory. There’s a saxophone solo and a bass solo, and at one point I’m inspired to imagine a symphonic King Crimson. There are female vocals here as well as on one other track.

“Reign”. According to my notes that I wrote while listening to the album, this song also features a symphony and as well some cool bass guitar, a violin solo and a saxophone solo, some great guitar solos, a piano solo, some acoustic guitar and mandolin in the middle and it ends with a funky drum beat solo. Lots of solos here!

“Fallen Stars” is a short acoustic song. It doesn’t thrill me but it it’s good enough and still fits in with the album.

“A World with no Measures” I have noted as a good symphonic metal piece but the song ends without any sense of conclusion. Just, that’s it. The song wraps up.

“The Light of the Fire” features a bit of flute with clean guitar and drums, as well as strings. It’s a slower song which includes a Sabbath-like riff, going slow and heavy before breaking into a galloping pace. This track also has death growl vocals which makes me suspect there was a guest for this. I find Barton really stretching his voice here when he sings, “lose control”.

“Apparitions” and “Let Freedom Ring (the heart of it all)” are the last two tracks and both of them have some electronica-like keyboard sounds, which is great to hear but I can’t help wondering why these sounds are introduced at the end of the album. The final track also includes another acoustic guitar part.

As far as the music is concerned, I think they’ve pretty much nailed it on this album. I don’t doubt that there are people out there who think that this is a perfect album with incredible musicianship and there are others who think it’s too all over the place. I really admire the skills of the musicians to compose and perform this kind of complex metal. I think I had to be in the right music enjoyment mode in order to truly appreciate the brilliance of this album. It has become a joy to listen to, though once I stop having it handy in my phone to play, I might just leave it alone for a while. Which would be a pity because it is really striking me now as a terrific piece of work

For people who enjoy complexity without sacrificing melody and who like great passages of guitar-led music with symphonic support, this album should be something you’d like to hear. Recommended to fans of symphonic and progressive metal.

Warthur Suspyre tickle the senses of prog metal listeners on this self-titled album, on which snatches of a range of different prog metal styles can be caught here and there. There's some really neat djenty sounds going down, some interesting diversions into Atheist-influence jazz metal, and just when you think that's already slightly too many different styles to reconcile the band roll out a section reminiscent of classic Dream Theater.

Indeed, to an extent their very diversity is the problem - the compositions often don't sound very cohesive and the impression is that they're trying to pay tribute to all of their influences at once rather than trying to meld everything together into a distinctive signature sound of their very own. (Maybe it's just me, for example, but I tend to find that the more Dream Theater-inspired sections seem to occur in close proximity to Clay Barton's vocals.) An interesting listen but they need to work on bringing all these disparates together into a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts if they want to really get me excited.

dtguitarfan What an incredibly interesting, incredibly diverse album! Do you want to really hear the potential of Progressive Metal? Listen to this album! I will say that I believe one reason I can be certain that this album is a masterpiece is due to the fact that I have previously not been a huge fan of Suspyre. I always liked their music, but found it a bit too experimental and eccentric, to the point of being incoherent. In this album, they have kept their experimental and eccentric side, but have found a coherence that makes the music amazing. My favorite track on the album was Tranquility and Stress, which perfectly paints the picture of the emotional transition from Tranquility to Stress. I also loved The Whispers Never Written (especially the clever reference to Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca - does anybody remember Hunt the Wumpus?), and The Man Made of Stone. I was completely blown away by this album when I didn't even expect much from it, and listened to it four times in a two week period.

Windhawk A very nice release from a band that really works hard at being if not ground-breaking then at least a destroyer of musical boundaries.

With a main basis in prog metal, they combine that music with classical, jazz/fusion and adds some elements of thrash to the mix as well; creating long songs with seamless movements in style, pace and sound - and fleshing out this release with some brilliant shorter mood pieces.

Influences from others can be heard, but the band is not derivative; more like original - or at least truly imaginative.

And they make their somewhat unique style of music accessible as well. Clearly worthwhile checking out this one!

Windhawk US band Suspyre is really finding their own way and style on this third album.

Combining elements from many types of music seems to be a speciality of these guys, and although they have a solid foundation in prog metal as a style there's a lot more to this release than just ordinary prog metal.

Highly classical influenced symphonic segments is a key addition to their sounds, most often with a distinct orchestrated sound rather than the standard multi-layered synths. Jazzy moments and sax solos are a natural element of the sound on this CD too, even a violin solo unless my ears deceived me. All of this elements in mostly quirky, technical guitar dominated compositions where dissonant and decomposing riff patterns are found just as often as regular prog metal chops. Good vocals further enhance the listening experience.

The general atmosphere of this album is rather grim and dark though - this is not a CD suitable for depressed people - but it's a strong release nonetheless, and one of few prog metal releases I've come across with a unique and distinct sound that can't be mistaken for anyone else. Highly recommended of course.