Lyken21
Cyclical Insight

“So buy it, turn it up and rock it out! Whether you’re 12 or 45, on Cyclical Insight you’ll find songs that will get your adrenaline pumping!” or so they claim in the press material and I cannot help wondering why such grandiose claims are always made in the press material and they are almost never backed up by the album itself. In this case it is about this American band’s first album on a record label, they have done a few albums independently before but this one is released by Sliptrick Records and features some guests from Symphony X, Dillinger Escape Plan and White Zombie, the press material didn’t really say who and how they guested other than about one person. Good thing they didn’t mention who was responsible for the dismal artwork.

The music is heavy metal of the rawer kind with some elements of thrash metal and such things, nothing really standouty in terms of the musical style. The vocalist is rough around the edges and not too bad; the production is pretty good with power and energy. Not much variation through the album though and the playing time feels perpetual at close to fifty minutes. They say that this album defines the term crossover, sending its listeners on a journey between the daylight and their dreams – I say that they are lying about that; there is nothing like that to be heard on this album. It is a standard heavy metal album; kind of American and it offers nothing new whatsoever.

The album isn’t bad but neither is it good, it just kind of is or perhaps you could claim that it is pretty boring. A pretty unexciting album and that claim about turning it up and rocking out just seems like sales pitching with no basis in reality – you will probably find the album fairly drab whether you are 12 or 45. It seems like something written by some guys who like to play heavy metal just so they have something to play and rehearse with no real intention to make great songs. The lack of standout features makes this album an uninteresting one, it is a solid handiwork but is really solid handiwork enough in a business as saturated as the music business?

My answer to that question is no, it isn’t enough and I think that Lyken21 will get lost in the masses of albums released and be quickly forgotten. I guess there was a reason why the band had to release their previous albums on its own; the question is why a label wanted to release this album. It seems like Lyken21 is another one of those also-rans with no chance of making any real impact, and I would be really surprised if they sold more than a handful copies of this album.

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