Ok, let’s just state that you can forget about Soilwork ‘cause there are hardly any influences of those guys on this album in my opinion. Maybe I was just focusing too much on those elements because when I heard this album for the first time I was a little disappointed. Fortunately I got over that pretty fast.

 

When I reached the point of taking this music in closer consideration, I started to wonder whether this music can still be called metal. Well, I’m pretty sure you can call it that but it’s definitely not the most raging melodic metalcore you’ve ever heard. It has more something of very heavy rock music combined with melodic metalcore influences. With the ‘heavy rock’ mainly caused by the amount of tempo changes throughout the album. There are just so many slower parts on it that I find it hard to call this music metal. Which isn’t meant in a negative way though.

 

Vocal wise it’s basically all melodic vocals without anything special to mention. It sure isn’t the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard and to be honest it’s not really much more than average. On the other hand though, I appreciate the backing vocals even more. Those are just nice and raw metalcore screams that give this album the metal-injection it needs. Something surprising, is that I even like the weird electronic noises the album comprises. Normally I’m not really a big fan of those but on The Perfect Symbiosis they seem to fit in very well.

 

I’m having quite a hard time to judge this album properly. It really has two sides. On one hand I think some parts are rather weak; I would have loved to hear more screaming on it and a little less slower parts. But on the other hand, it gives Ophydian an own face. Something of their own that does not necessarily distinguish them from all other bands but still is a valuable thing to have being a band. The Perfect Symbiosis is quite a decent album filled with heavy rock combined with melodic metalcore elements that might do very well live.