Band:	Sinflower
Album:	For All You Left Behind
Style:	Thrash metal
Release date:	March 2009
A review by:	Thryce

01. I Feel
02. For All You Left Behind
03. I Hate Liars I Hate You
04. Shine
05. Stay Out
06. You Don't Know All This

Due to reasons unrelated to anyone's business, I've become a fervent appreciator of the "Italians do it better" point of view. Just like my girls, coffee, food and mafia in movies, I tend to like my metal Italian these days. And for sure, the Italian metal scene has also a lot of quality bands to offer, one of them being Arezzo-based metallers Sinflower. Despite the fact Sinflower is a young band, they immediately prove themselves by "For All You Left Behind", their very promising debut album.

Truth be told I'm not a botanic, but I picture a sinflower as a pitch-black, beautiful flower; gracious yet with extremely vicious thorns (mark Sinflower's first contrariety). And that's exactly how one could describe Sinflower's sound too: pretty up-tempo melodic-based metal with some dark passages, sharp like thorns. The roots of Sinflower' style lie in the more traditional heavy power metal genre - mentioning flower and power in the same sentence doesn't mean we're talking European flower metal, hell no - with some favorable sharp thrashy undertones. The constant presence of these dark, heavy and by times even slightly thrashy pieces, keep the album fresh and captivating.

So for all you left behind, here's a powerful new sound for you which will keep you busy for quite a while. Indeed, Sinflower's vast sound is gripping to say the least, but the effects are short-lived. Like a bad drug, the enthralling atmosphere is gone as soon as the music stops, making you push the repeat button a few more times, like a good drug's supposed to do (mark Sinflower's second contrariety). Also due to no stand-out tracks, Sinflower's sound is therefore unlikely to stick in your head for several days. Consequently, Sinflower stands for an intriguing yet kind of contradicting band. "For All You Left Behind" is album where not everything is what it seems to be. But Sinflower bear enough potential to become one of those bands where contradiction is a compelled element of the sound, giving them certain superiority.

If the metal scene would be a prison, Sinflower would be the equivalent of the big tattooed biker guy you once dropped your soap in front of. Sinflower takes you by surprise with such a convincing impact that they leave you destroyed before you even realize it, but with a strange yet sweet aftertaste for more... Remember, Italians do it better.


PS: all six tracks are streaming on the band's MySpace page and website.