Album: The Initial Frontier Pt. 2
Artist: Vyre
Genre: Progressive Black Metal
Suggested by: mythsofmetal
Familiarity: None.
1. Naughtylus - I like the guitars at the start. The guitars in general are pretty atmospheric. The growls are good too! I'm getting a definite Death-doom feel here. Wow, this is really bloody awesome. There's a great middle section that gives me a bit of a Radiohead feel, especially with the guitar. The drums aren't spectacular, but they keep constant action throughout the entire song. The guitar solo towards the end is also great.
2. Diabolum ex machina - Playing up Pink Floyd a bit with the lyrics at the start. I could sort of hear the Gilmour influence in the guitar solo of the last song. This one's got that German krautrock feel to it. Of course, combined with doom metal. It changes its tone at just the right time, picking up to a death metal beat. For the first time, I can understand the lyrics, and I think they're pretty good. Like the last song, the guitars here are pretty entertaining. The guitarist loves to let the chords ring out for a little while. Back to the beautifully mechanical repetition for a little while, until a spooky section comes in, obviously inspired by the X-Files music. This one's starting to feel like it's going on for too long. I think it's not half-bad though.
3. RDR 66 - The shortest track at 7 minutes, it starts heavy already. For the first time, the vocals have to carry this track a bit. Do they do a good job? Yeah, I think so. A really cool guitar solo plays underneath the vocals, and a hell of a lot of other noise (drums, another guitar). The fact that they have so many things going on in this song gives me some extra incentive to love it. And I really do love it. A really angry song, this one.
4. For Carl - Cool intro, and then we get some symphonic stuff. Very epic indeed. Then the metallic riff comes back in. Then some ambient noise, and a brief guitar solo. I feel like this part should be a song of its own. All of a sudden, the drums and heavy guitars kick back in. I actually really like this one. The riff is very infectious.
5. Neutronenstern - This one has a bit more power metal influences. I hear some piano underneath the rest of the music. I think the song could have benefited from making the piano part a bit more audible, because from what I could hear, it was very cool. A section towards the end really finishes off the album well. I hear what sounds like synthesized singing really close to the end. I think they could have done with a real singer. Other than that, nothing to complain about.
I have been really surprised to hear how good this album is. It's definitely got something about it that's different than anything else I've ever heard. It's definitely not perfect, and there are parts that drag a bit, but other than that, it's a genuinely great progressive death metal album.
OVERALL RATING: 9/10