They say you should never judge a book by its cover (or a band by its name), but initially I had little to go on with Zenthetix and as such few pre-conceptions, only vague recollections of their former projects in years gone by and a band name that took some getting used to.
So what we have here though is a four piece hailing from the south coast of England mixed with the nu-metal influences from the other side of the Atlantic, releasing their second single in “Hydrate” coming out around a year and half later than debut single “Section” back in 2012.
It still feels strange using the term nu-metal considering Korn’s self-titled first album was recorded twenty years ago, but that goes somewhat to show how much inspiration the ‘90s scene has given bands over the years including that of Zenthetix.
The bands’ first single “Section” has a clean radio friendly feel to be compared to Linkin Park rather than the angst of Korn making for a more straight forward yet well produced tune, but with the follow up in “Hydrate” they mix it up a bit – starting off in the same vein as its predecessor focusing on the vocal talents on offer, before changing direction halfway with the deep bass kicking in whilst overladen with samples, synths and doubled up harmonies.
With over a year and a half between singles hopefully it won’t be so long until the albums out, but in the meantime there’s always the bonus track of “Hydrate (End of the World remix)” a more chilled out version of the recent single which works really nicely, without going out of its way to make the original track un-recognisable.
