Sonus Mortis is an Irish solo artist who was established in 2013. With a diverse catalogue of releases, the artist has recently launched their eighth independent studio album, titled “Synapse The Hivemind,” on March 27, 2025.
Sonus Mortis Social Links
Sonus Mortis, Synapse the Hivemind Review: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production. Our analysis will provide valuable insights to help you determine if this album is worth adding to your collection.
The First Three Sins of Synapse the Hivemind
Let’s start by discussing the first three sins of Sonus Mortis and his album, Synapse the Hivemind
The First Sin, The Strings/Keys: Features powerful, distorted riffs that conjure a dark and strong atmosphere, while it intertwines technical and melodic elements with powerful crushing tones, merging the rapid aggression and sombre essence… Deep, gloomy bass riffs and tunes enhance the overall sound. Orchestral arrangements with strings, choirs, and other symphonic layers elevate the music. The Second Sin, The Vocals: Combines deep growls, piercing screams and epic chorus vocals. The Third Sin—The Percussions: Features powerful and dynamic drumming that fuses fast, aggressive patterns with the slow, heavy beats.
The Fourth Sin: Overall Discussion:
Intense and monumental, combining heaviness with grandeur, progressive and brutal, yet simultaneously dark and beautiful.
Upon pressing the play button, listeners are immediately welcomed by the powerful and intense introduction of Biomechanical Horrors. This sets the stage for the subsequent eight tracks, which embark on a lyrical exploration of cybernetic integration and dystopian imagery, examining the convergence of humanity and technology. Sonus Mortis offers a collection of nine intricate songs that span nearly forty minutes. Once again, the artistry behind the instrumental and vocal arrangements showcases a fruit of art that blends symphonic elements with the weightiness of death and doom metal, maintaining a distinctive signature style.
Its sole founder, Kevin Byrne, skilfully blends music that is both effectively crafted and performed with fruit of art precision, creating an absolutely flawless production. Every note, chord, tempo, and atmospheric nuance is expertly created with painstaking attention to detail, creating a sonic landscape with unparalleled richness and clarity. Furthermore, Sonus Mortis’s music transcends the boundaries of traditional extreme symphonic metal, transforming into a majestic symphonic extreme metal experience that enthrals you from the first listen. Allow the music to envelop your spirit and mind, taking you on a haunting voyage.
A compelling guitar work that is characterized by its powerful, distorted riffs that conjure a dark and strong atmosphere is revealed in the world of artistic devilmanship. Byrne skilfully intertwines technically and melodic elements with powerful crushing tones, merging the rapid aggression of death metal with the sombre essence of doom metal. These compositions are based on the guitar, which drives the music’s emotional resonance and intensity. In addition to boosting the low-end frequencies and adding to the arrangements’ impression of fullness, deep, resonant bass riffs enhance the overall sound. The bass frequently contributes significantly to the tunes’ gloomy atmosphere.
Sonus Mortis features powerful and dynamic drumming that highlights complex rhythms and increased intensity. Byrne uses various methods, fusing the fast, aggressive patterns of death metal with the slow, heavy beats of doom metal. The drums harmonize the metal and symphonic elements while giving the compositions energy and momentum. By creating orchestral arrangements with strings, choirs, and other symphonic layers, synthesizers significantly influence the overall sound. These elements elevate the music and give it a majestic, cinematic feel that sets it apart from traditional death and doom metal.
Byrne‘s singing technique combines deep growls, piercing screams and epic chorus vocals. His performance is both powerful and expressive, effectively communicating the themes of hopelessness, disdain for humanity, and anti-religious sentiments that lie at the heart of Sonus Mortis‘ sound. The vocals frequently feature added effects to amplify their intensity and blend harmoniously with the orchestral components.
Synapse the Hivemind is an intense and monumental album that flawlessly combines heaviness with grandeur, resulting in a sound that is both progressive and brutal, yet simultaneously dark and beautiful. Each track highlights Kevin‘s exceptional skills in artistry, instrumentation, vocals, and songwriting. A diverse array of instruments and soundscapes contributes to a rich, intricate sound that is both haunting and strikingly beautiful. The album invites listeners on a profound and intense journey, filled with moments of reflection and beauty.
The album concludes with the final track, Synapse the Hivemind (Execute the Code), as the last threads of life, come to a close, we want to give a shoutout to Sonus Mortis for letting us review their album Of Red Barren Earth. Now, we are going to conclude the review by talking about the final three sins and concluding the review.
The Last Three Sins
Let’s discuss the last three sins of Sonus Mortis and his album, Synapse the Hivemind
The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia:
Sonus Mortis has unveiled another artistic creation following my experience with the 2023 album Of Red Barren Earth, which I found enjoyable, as well as Synapse the Hivemind. While both albums are artistic achievements, Synapse the Hivemind demonstrates notable growth in its instrumental composition, lyrics (that are dark and somewhat truthful to reality) and devilmanship compared to Of Red Barren Earth.
Synapse the Hivemind presents a more refined and unified experience, successfully achieving its goals. It delivers an epic, heavy, and brutal sound infused with symphonic elements and darkness, while also showcasing beauty and meaningful lyrics.
The Sixth Sin, The Artwork:
The artwork not only captures the music and the theme; cybernetic integration and dystopian imagery; examining the convergence of humanity and technology.
The Seventh Sin, Disrelish:
There is nothing to dislike in the musical offerings of Sonus Mortis and his album, Synapse the Hivemind. Thus, we conclude our review of Sonus Mortis and his album, Synapse the Hivemind. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for your time in reading this article, and I encourage you to explore the work of Sonus Mortis.
Members
Kevin Byrne: everything
Track-Listing
01. Biomechanical Horrors
02. Eyes in the Sky
03. I Used to be Human
04. The System Shock
05. The Perfect Host
06. The Unravelling Array
07. Synapse the Hivemind
08. Deracinated
09. Slave to the Algorithm (Execute the Code)
