SYNLAKROSS – Pitch Black (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

Shadow, Science and Stars: A New Cut From SynlakrosS

With Pitch Black, SynlakrosS sharpen their hybrid of melodic death metal and alternative metal into something both immediate and suggestive. The track arrives with an official video that leans into the song’s obsessions with cosmic collapse, mutating bodies and the cool indifference of laboratory science. It is a stark, tightly executed piece that pushes heaviness and narrative side by side, and it signals a potent chapter from the band’s album 0K4M1.

The Sound That Drives the Darkness

Pitch Black is built on precision and pressure. The guitars favor a modern high-gain edge that slices through the arrangement, alternating between palm-muted jabs and bleak, melodic figures that carry the hook. Harmonized leads flare at key moments, not as ornament but as propulsion. Underneath, the bass tracks the guitars closely to reinforce the low-end punch, then opens up during transitions to give the mix a little air.

The drumming is brisk and physical, toggling between double-kick patterns and measured, half-time grooves that let the riffs breathe. Fills are concise and placed to set up pivots in the arrangement. It is a compact structure where verses bite down hard, choruses expand into something more sweeping, and a mid-song descent tightens the screws before the final surge. The production’s clarity keeps these shifts legible without softening their impact.

Vocally, the delivery sits right in the pocket of the band’s stylistic blend. Harsh lines lead with grit and consonant snap, carving rhythmic counterpoint against the guitars, while layered passages emphasize the song’s central images and title. Every phrase is engineered to cut through the density of the mix, a testament to the attention paid to dynamics and diction in modern extreme metal.

Cosmic Horror, Body Horror, Human Horror

SynlakrosS steer the lyric sheet toward the gravitational pull of astrophysics and biotech dread. Images collide: “Alone I am. Cold and black. Neutron star,” the voice intones, framing the self as an astronomical object, collapsed and dense. Elsewhere, “They’re playing with my DNA” brings that cosmic scale down to the cellular level, where a “black goo” threads through body and identity. The repeated triad “Blood, hate and fascination” reads like a thesis for the song’s emotional core, an admission that revulsion and curiosity remain bound together.

The writing flirts with origin myths and transgressive creation. Lines about gestation, reptilian maps of the nervous system, and clandestine surgery sketch a narrative of forced evolution or devolution that is neither heroic nor tragic, only stark. The closing thought turns outward again: “We were created by gods. Astronauts that existed before us.” It’s a classic heavy-music preoccupation rendered with purposeful brevity, letting the instrumentation carry the dread between phrases.

What emerges is not a puzzle to be solved but a climate to inhabit. Cosmic collapse mirrors psychic collapse. Clinical intervention rubs up against myth. The song’s title keeps its promise: the light sources in this world are fleeting, and their glow only makes the surrounding dark feel thicker.

Video Language: Sterility and Contamination

The official video, directed and produced by Sergio Mangas with art direction by Barbara Navarro Soler, distills those lyrical motifs into a spare, unsettling narrative. Cast with Fran Gil as a scientist and Ana Robert as a pregnant subject, the clip stages a controlled environment whose order is always on the verge of being compromised. The props and setting favor the cool surfaces of a lab, the measured choreography of procedures and observation. Against that stillness, the notion of invasive substance and altered birth becomes the story’s pulse.

Rather than relying on shock, the direction uses composition and contrast to suggest what cannot be seen. Close frames and careful cuts let the imagination do some of the violence, while recurring visual cues nod back to the song’s “black goo” fixation and its double helix anxieties. The performance feels disciplined and patient, aligning with the track’s precisely engineered momentum.

Studio Precision and Weight

Pitch Black benefits from a production that treats every instrument as a load-bearing element. Facundo Novo handled production, recording, engineering, mixing and mastering at Novo Estudios, and his approach favors definition without sacrificing mass. Guitars sit forward but make room for cymbal air and vocal texture. Low end has authority, not blur. Choruses bloom slightly wider, yet the overall shape remains punchy and modern.

The result complements the band’s writing. Accents land cleanly. Melodic phrases stay intelligible under pressure. The sonic architecture mirrors the song’s themes of containment and rupture, building a vessel strong enough to hold the anxiety it carries.

Where It Lands in Their Trajectory

Framed within the cycle surrounding 0K4M1, Pitch Black reads as a statement of focus. It doubles down on the group’s ability to braid serrated riffcraft with melodic signposts, and it affirms a lyrical interest in science-fiction language as a way to talk about human fear, control and transformation. The track’s concision is part of its identity. There is no sprawl, only vectors, each pointing to the same dark center.

Why It Connects

Concept and cohesion — The interplay between astrophysical imagery and body horror gives the song clear thematic DNA that the video translates with discipline.
Modern heaviness — Tight, high-gain guitars, articulate drums and a focused mix deliver impact without sacrificing clarity.
Memorable signals — Refrain language and recurring motifs act as anchors, making the track easy to recall even as it stays dense and heavy.

Credits

Directed and produced by Sergio Mangas
Art direction and production assistant Barbara Navarro Soler
Actors:
- Scientist — Fran Gil
- Pregnant — Ana Robert
Music production, recording, engineering, mixing and mastering Facundo Novo, Novo Estudios
Lyrics and music Composed, arranged and performed by SynlakrosS
Special thanks Daniel Luces, Lourdes Cervera, Manic Panic Spain, Ciudad Banana, EMG Pickups

Final Thoughts

Pitch Black works because every part serves the same idea. The riffs are cold and insistent, the vocals carve through with intent, and the production frames it all with modern steel. The video resists spectacle in favor of implication, honoring the song’s fixation on what happens in the shadows of creation and control. For SynlakrosS, this is heavy music as hypothesis, offered with the precision of a lab report and the urgency of a warning.

The band closes their notes by thanking their listeners, a reminder that even in a song this stark, there is a community on the other end. In that sense, Pitch Black does what metal does at its best. It takes fear to its limit, shapes it into sound, and sends it out to be shared.