The Copenhagen hardcore band SYL drills its way into the pain with the new EP ‘afmagt‘ (Danish for ‘powerlessness’) out today, June 7th, 2024, via Audible Records. With ‘afmagt’, SYL follows up on the the debut album ‘alt godt’ from 2022 and furtherly develops its fusion of punk, hardcore and metal while releasing its most aggressive, indignant material to date. This can be heard of the EP’s two singles, that includes guest vocal performances from Jonathan Albrechtsen (ROT AWAY) on ‘igen’ and Thomas Burø (Lack, Tvivler) on ‘rose’.
SYL’s front man and lyricist Benjamin Clemens states on the EP: “We didn’t necessarily set out to write an angrier project, I think it was just the natural next step for us. All of the subjects that we discussed when creating ‘afmagt’, and the lyrics I wanted to write for these songs, had a more aggressive edge to them when compared to some of the older stuff. Maybe there’s just a lot of things to be mad about right now…”
SYL will play at First Days at this year’s Roskilde Festival (DK) and has just announced a performance at Smukfest (DK), while the band will perform in Norway this August with more Scandinavian shows to be announced.
SYL Live 2024
01.07 – Roskilde Festival (DK)
09.08 – Smukfest, Skanderborg (DK)
24.08 – Verket Festival, Mo i Rana (NO)
04.10 – Slag Town Slays, Slagelse (DK)
19.10 – Forbrændingen, Albertslund (DK)
SYL has been moving fast since its inception in August 2020. The name originates from a drunken, homemade tattoo that gave the members a band name before there was a band. But SYL quickly became a band with a goal of playing noisy music that is fun to perform and works live – and it is precisely the shows that define SYL as a band and songwriters.
Live, SYL is an intense, engaging presence that creates a shared cathartic space, allowing room for the emotions that might otherwise be tucked away. This power has been evident when the band celebrated their debut album ‘alt godt’ with a super-intense, packed release show and at concerts in Denmark and Norway with bands like Honningbarna, Rot Away, Tvivler, and EYES.
After a series of significant live performances that have cemented SYL as one of the best new Danish punk bands, the band has focused on writing and recording new material in its creative exile at Sortsø on Falster. A hectic and fruitful process has now resulted in the EP ‘afmagt’ consisting of six tracks, produced by the band and Peter Hove Olesen (Rot Away, Demersal).
On ‘afmagt,’ you’ll encounter a SYL with an expanded expression, which has become both harder and softer at the respective ends of the dynamic spectrum. The music is unmistakably SYL with its frayed, aggressive mix of punk, hardcore, and metallic subgenres, never compromising on the hook and melody, thus engaging both the audience and the band itself.
Engagement is not lacking in SYL, nor in the EP’s outraged lyrics. While ‘alt godt’ was characterized by anxious introspection in a world of pressure and rootlessness, ‘afmagt’ looks outwardly at a world full of grief and struggle, and powerlessness is unsurprisingly the central theme of the EP.
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All the songs on ‘afmagt’ touch on a feeling of powerlessness in various relations, but most notably towards the political structures that contribute to undermining human relationships, a just society, and the planet’s future. SYL has once again managed to press on the wound where it should be: Where it hurts the most.
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