Kyros - Monster EP review

Prolific ex-Synaesthesia folk follow debut album with new tracks.

Kyros - Monster EP artwork

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Adam Warne and friends seem to have been making up for lost time since ditching the Synaesthesia monicker and the GEP label in favour of the Kyros banner and the self-release route in 2015.

Their rebirth has been impressive, with three EPs since then, either side of October’s double album Vox Humana, and the two new compositions found here (you might have heard the lead tune before). Either way, Monster is a fine single choice, led by a frantic stomping synth riff tied to an impatient time signature, creating a rising sense of panic that would surely be felt by any mad scientist trying to create a robot child, as featured in Vox Humana’s conceptual narrative. Indigo Was Her is similarly immediate, shot through with an engaging Marillion-esque pop sensibility. Arrangement-wise, we’re in relatively safe prog territory, from the Moogish keyboards to the soaring guitar solos to the soft, slightly hippyish vocal warble. But then Kyros’ experimental side takes flight on final track The Door, as we’re assaulted by discordant chimes of jagged metallic guitar, macabre electronic baby voices and one epic chorus. Watch them burst further out of their own boundaries with each new release.

Johnny Sharp

Johnny is a regular contributor to Prog and Classic Rock magazines, both online and in print. Johnny is a highly experienced and versatile music writer whose tastes range from prog and hard rock to R’n’B, funk, folk and blues. He has written about music professionally for 30 years, surviving the Britpop wars at the NME in the 90s (under the hard-to-shake teenage nickname Johnny Cigarettes) before branching out to newspapers such as The Guardian and The Independent and magazines such as Uncut, Record Collector and, of course, Prog and Classic Rock