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CD ReviewSinch – “Clearing the Channel”By Marcus Pan
Sinch's background is pretty standard fair. Beginning in the parent's garage of vocalist Jamie Stem, Sinch's roots are traced to high school gigging and clubs. Including Tony Lannutti's guitar work and well layed sound design, Mike Abramson's bass and Dan McFarland's drums and percussion. Released on Rock Ridge Music, Clearing the Channel was co-produced by Linkin Park/Nothingface's Drew Mazurek. The fifth member of Sinch is Jay Smith, who's "viditar," he uses to edit and put together live video footage on the back wall to enhance the live version of Sinch's music. The band as a whole have been touted, with this in mind, as the "brothers of invention" by Philly Weekly and have started a wide reaching tour this past February. The music as I said, found here on Clearing the Channel, is...good. The heavy riffwork of All That's Left Behind is one of the better modern hard rock tunes to hit in a while, for example, but overall the band is missing something at least in studio that would put them above the reaches of all the others vying to fill this genre. Identity Theft is one of their better songs, with percussive-based guitar and bass work coupling well with McFarland's drum work. Almost blatantly Tool-like is The Last Scene, and that's not to say this a bad thing by far. Good lyrics, head banging music with bass and drums sharing duties and guitars alternating between a background dirge and heavy riffs. Slow acoustic ballad Sails is a nice track and well placed in the center of the album to provide a breath between heavy work the band normally does. Vanishing Act meanwhile is a trance-like instrumental that finds itself lost on this album even if it isn't a bad song in and of itself. An excellent return to the heavier side of Sinch with The Power of Suggestion follows, a highlight to Clearing the Channel. Stem's vocals are quite good, very much on par with others you'll find today. There's really no reason why a good portion of Clearing the Channel isn't achieving major radio play nationwide, really, other than notoriety of course. Hopefully with their touring and this recent release they'll get the notice they need for this airplay. I number them as one of the better modern heavy rock bands today...but unfortunately they’re just one of many already there. Certainly not bad...I'm just hoping they can find whatever it is that's missing to spark them to the charts. Contact Information: Click to Buy!
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Certainly not bad by any
means, Sinch's Clear the Channel release has a mainstream appeal through
its makeup. I can't put my finger on what they are lacking, but there's some
missing spark here that would have lifted them out of the plethora of heavy
rock influenced bands of the day that we all know, i.e. Creed, Bush, etc. But
it's certainly not a bad recording with solid musicianship, good mastering and
a good vocalist. Everything's...good. 
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