Krallice : "Hyperion"

Krallice tried to slip this one under the table, it's a three song ep and it's also the last chance I am giving the band. They haven't put out a stinker yet, but I feel they are trying to wow me more with their technical prowess more than they are trying to write songs, which is a waste of my time. The guitar tone on the title track that opens the album has than clean ringing black metal from Brooklyn sounds that older Liturgy also employs. That works for me and the vocal exchange varies a little in the range of raspy gasps.They drone on and throw a dizzying array of punches in. Of course all instruments are well played, though the drummer might be playing fast it doesn't sound like he is hitting that hard. Note to drummers if you are playing metal, how fast you are playing is a mute point if you don't hit hard. At around seven minutes they are not over doing things compositional sense, so in some ways that makes this better than their last one. Nothing I haven't heard from them before so it that sense it's not blowing me away either.


 Slightly more sonic ground is touched upon on "the Guilt of Time". The vocal roar is lower and more death metal like, but delivered with less pretense to give it a rawer black metal feel. The melodic section midway into the song does give it some atmosphere that this project could stand to put of the technical dazzle when making their song writing to-do list. So I am hearing some slight improvements and some times a few degrees of change makes all the difference in the world as this begins to remind me of what I liked about earlier Liturgy.This song also stays under the seven minute mark, so maybe they will inspire this trend in future Brooklyn based black metal bands. "Assuming Memory" is the third and final offering on this ep. It does hit the ten minute mark , but if that time is used wisely I will not hold it against them. I like how the drums come in, however mix wise they could use more balls.  Though it might be the pains of not hitting hard enough coming in. They come together in more typical black metal fashion.   They play this one more straight forward aside from a few flashy embellishments along the way. So do they get applause for playing it safe here when they can't seem to win for losing when they go overboard, so I suppose this restraint is an improvement.

So maybe they are overrated, maybe I'll except this and see where they go from here as I don't really feel like those three songs wasted my time. The fact certain elements were streamlined might be what I needed. I'm not particularly blown away even by the more impressive elements, however all together it works well, I'll round it down to an 8. There are some good ideas and they are doing this better than many American attempts to replicate this hip take on black metal. Perhaps if they build upon the discipline they adhered to here they will make an album as great at what people are giving them credit for.