Album Review: Syteria - "Reflection"

 

Formed midway through the last decade by Girlschool guitarist Jax Chambers, Syteria first came to our attention with their 2017 album Rantobot which was an inconsistent but promising set of pop-punk tunes. Since then, they've undergone a slight personnel change with bassist Keira Kenworthy leaving to join Joanovarc and being replaced by Steph Dawson.

Similar to the Donnas or the Amorettes, Syteria peddle a straight-up brand of glammed up pop-punk albeit with more of a social conscience as evidenced on the likes of Make Some Noise and the environmental protest song Goodbye World. Musically, they're impressively solid with frontwoman Julia commanding things with her vocals alternating between a purr and a snarl in the best Pat Benatar style while Jax, Steph and drummer Pablo keep things impressively tight musically behind her. The production here is very slick and makes them sound more like a 21st century Sweet or Mud than anything else. Good in some ways but at times you do wish they had a bit more of a Runaways style rough-around-the-edges badassness about them.

The other slight problem with Reflection is that Syteria do seem a little bit reticient to let go of their pop-punk security blanket and branch out a bit leading to some of the later songs on Reflection like I Want It All and Plastic Fantastic feeling a bit interchangeable. A good example is Sorry which starts off with some gentle acoustic guitar but promptly goes into a full-on riff-fest the same as the other songs after about 30 seconds.

That's not to say this is a bad album though - certainly it shows some good progress from Rantobot with Make Some Noise and Guilty being good fist-in-the-air anthems and As If showing a sly sense of humour underpinning the lyrics. And even if Syteria are a bit limited in their scope, at least they're good at what they do which always helps. Overall diagnosis - although it's still a bit inconsistent, this albums shows that Syteria do appear to be getting there slowly but surely. Decent enough.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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