FORCE OF GRAVITY

Sylvan's "Force of Gravity" is neither something new nor is it something very original. It actually sounds a little uninspired or less mildly put, like stagnation. I got the impression that they put their new material together and called it the new album. Then someone came along and said "Do you think it sounds progressive enough?" "Not sure, let's add a few more progressive parts." So, they did that and after they were done someone said "Um, it's a little too Old School. Maybe you should add a few more digital sounds to pep it up." And so they pepped it up a little. But again someone came along and said "I think it's missing some heavy guitar riffs, you know, Riverside like." "No problem, " the band replied, "since we're excellent musicians it should be a piece of cake to add a few nice heavy guitar riffs." After implementing the latest suggestion they all felt like the album sounded a little too contrived now and they decided to edit out some of the more contrived parts until someone realized that making the album less contrived could actually make it even more contrived. "I'm getting tiered of this." one band member said, "Let's leave it like this." And the others agreed.

That's probably not how Sylvan recorded their new album but that's what it feels like to me. It's not bad, but considering what this band was capable of in previous albums it could have been far better.