Sympos – Sympos 10″ LP

Sympos are a relatively new Irish punk rock group from Waterford, formed in 2020 by three music enthusiasts. The group planned to perform some live shows, but due to the pandemic, they focused on songwriting, composing, and producing what would become their debut material. Their compositions are dealing with various personas, relationships, events, situations, circumstances, but the group takes it on a humorous side and claims they gathered to rehearsal together mainly because of free chips, beer, and love for shouting at the crowd. Their debut full-length recording offers all these themes plus even more, illustrated with an energetic punk rock sound.

Still, this material offers more than simplistic punk rock music. Sympos incorporated loads of other sonic delicacies into these sporadically diverse compositions. At some points, you’ll hear classic punk rock, loaded with dynamic rhythmic acrobatics and three-chord harmonizations. However, you’ll notice the generous dosages of hardcore punk, streetpunk, and Oi! pervading from all the possible directions. Besides sounding slightly abrasive, like the vast portion of similar groups out there, Sympos involve some melodies throughout the entire album. These additional ingredients are unquestionably adding some more flavor to their music. The production follows some traditions, which are mostly a characteristic of UK punk rock bands. It’s not overly polished nor entirely abrasive, with strong accentuations on the rhythm section and lead vocals.

This self-titled full-length represents a well-balanced material that will suit both admirers of crude streetpunk sound and melodic punk rock music. The group sounds tight from scratch to finish, and the retro-sounding production offers a bit more aggression to the listening experience. The lead vocals are leaning towards traditional shouting, with a lot of singalongs added at the choruses. However, this singing style will appeal to you even if you’re more into mellow melodic chants. The semi-distorted basslines are equally present or maybe volumed up even more than guitars, but that doesn’t spoil all the fun. This production technic reminded me of some eighties UK82 albums, recorded by many renowned hardcore punk groups. The drummer keeps everything in line and keeps things agile as much as possible. Everything sounds good, considering this material was written, composed, assembled, and recorded less than a year after the formation of Sympos.

This material comes on a 10″ record, which is currently up for pre-orders at Advance Records. However, you can hear the material in its entirety at streaming services such as Spotify and Bandcamp. Don’t miss this one if you’re into abrasive punk rock sound.