Duplicate Records, in cooperation with Suc-Yr-As Records present
SYRACUS - The Easy Way Out
Previews: http://www.myspace.com/syracus
Cd €15.5 incl. p&p. Special offer: order the cd and the ep Sleeping Thermostats for only €19 incl. p&p!
Press info:
After almost ten years of playing together, more than one hundred gigs, two demoes, and an EP, Norwegian alternative rockers Syracus are releasing their first and last album “The easy way out” through their own label and Duplicate Records. This release and a handful of gigs spred out over the next 6 moths or so, will mark the end for one of Norways truly finest underground bands that never broke the mainstream surface.
The decision to split was made already a year ago, as a result of a band meeting meant to pep the band up to give it even more than before. Songwriter and guitarist Svein Brekke realized that supporting the release the way that's necessary to break the band was out of reach for him. At the same time the band had more or less finished writing the material for the debut album. Material that was leagues ahead of their previous releases, and was undoubtfully their very finest moments as a band. “Not recording these songs just felt like taking a giant piss at everything we'd worked so hard for, and there was no way that we could live with ourselves knowing that our prime stuff went unrecorded.” says Svein Brekke about “The easy way out”.
The following year Syracus spent finishing the songs, they recorded a preproduction at Sveins familys cabin in Telemark, Norway, and they booked studio time for the spring of 2007 at Marius Strands (Susperia, She Said Destroy +++) and Andreas Berczellys (Minor Majority +++) studios. “The idea was to record the rockier songs at Marius' place and do the more down beat stuff at Andreas' place cus his studio is amazing for that type of recordings. Whether anybody was going to release it or if anyone wanted to buy it wasn't all that important anymore, and that felt really liberating. All we had to do was to do was make sure that we were happy ourselves and that we had a good time doing it, both of which were huge successes!” is Sveins comment on the logics of recording an album they couldn't support. “Now I'm just really proud!”
And the result is ten songs that stretches the Syracusformula further than ever, both in more extreme and more subtle directions. There's a much greater sense of playfulness and will to experiment with their expression than in anything the band has done previously. In short “The easy way out” shows a band that's on its very peak creatively and convinces to this in both melodies, lyrics, structures and form. Songs like “Losing track of hot and cold” and “The love for trivia” prime examples of Syracus's intensely desperate and anger/angst-ridden sides, while songs like “Clay & wire” (feat. Rockettothesky) and the stupidiously grandiose finalè that is “The city sings along” are evidence of what amazing atmospheres this band generates at their very best.
But releasing an album this kind of magnitude wasn't enough to convince Syracus to carry on. “We'd started writing some new stuff, but nothing really hit the spot, and it felt like we were repeating ourselves rather than challenging ourselves and that's when music seizes to be interesting.” Svein offers. “Writing music seemed more like a chore on our shoulders than a fun and exciting process, and that really took a lot of the air out of our balloon. This music has been, and still is, way to important for us to treat like a commodity and that's why we're laying it to rest now.”
And what happens if the album suddenly breaks into the mainstream and things are going your way?
“Then we'll have the best fucking ending this band could ever dream of!” Svein finishes with a grin.
“The easy way out” can at the moment only be bought through www.duplicate-records.com or www.syracus.no, but will be available through Indie Distribution / Plastic Head later this autumn.