KRYSTHLA
Find out more about Krysthla here.
Find out more about Krysthla here.
I had been meaning to blog something about Krysthla for a while now, ever since seeing them blow the roof off the Haunt in Brighton at Mammothfest 2016, with their blistering blend of heavy tech-death metal. At the time I wrote a few words for Pure Rawk. I've finally added some photos to these pages here too.
If you have read my write-up you'll know how impressed I was with the gig. Krysthla are an incredibly tight band, with a great drummer for the guitars to work off, but there's much more to the band than all round technical brilliance. It seems to me that while lesser bands of a similar ilk are making music as a tool for personal grandstanding, overplaying to the point of tedium, Krysthla are using their abilities as a tool to sculpt some truly great songs, where musicality above all is key.
Their riffs are honed to a scalpel-like sharpness, the heavy melodic hooks ripped out just as soon as they've sunk in, cutting a deeper wound with each listen. The vocals are equally malicious; a full gamut of throat busting roars and screams delivered with the kind of intensity that make Krysthla one of the most downright vicious sounding bands on the scene right now. With a wealth of infectious grooves driving every track there's huge cross-(sub)genre appeal too.
Since that Mammothfest show, their 2015 released debut album, A War Of Souls And Desires, has rarely been far from my stereo. A couple of weeks back I received their follow up album Peace In Our Time, due for release 7th April via PHD, and for the last few days it's been played on a daily basis...
Peace In Our Time takes the elements that made the debut so critically well received and expands on them with a real sense of ambition. This is clear right from the off with album opener The Minor Mystery Of Death featuring a grandiose accented power chord introduction, complete with a soaring lead guitar, building towards the one minute mark when a primal roar hails the song proper, and all-hell-breaking loose thereafter. Hard hitting riffs flow freely, with Adi Mayes' hate infused vocals slicing venomously through the onslaught.
Yahm al-Qiyamah follows up with blast beats a-plenty, and another full-on double bass drum assault, while guitars continue to batter the senses. There's a melodic moment of calm-before-the-storm-that-follows when Depths takes its turn to carry on the pummelling. Respite is allowed only to welcome an awesome dirty grind of a groove that takes the song to its end.
Like Depths before it, Make Disciples Of The Nations is another song with a split personality, shifting from the sheer ferocity of the first half to a double bass drum fuelled downbeat chug the second, and back again to finish. Mob vocals add new textures to the sound and they are all over the next track, Within The Lie Of All Lies, too. There are no suprises here, the song ending as it starts, but the catchy mid-tempo groove throughout should make this one a shoe-in for clubnight playlists, and help grow appeal outside of the more extreme metal circles.
In Death We Shall Not Die marks a return to the break neck wrecking that will no doubt cause a few bruises in the pit, the "we love death as you love life" shout sure to translate well to the live show. There's a definite Gojira influence in Age Of War, but the stomping grooves that wind around the spiteful vocal bark is all Krysthla. To my mind, it's what this band are going to become known for.
The final song sees them moving into new territory. Eternal Oceans is 7 minutes of lyrically deep oppressive sludgy doom. The pressure is only lifted for the epic chorus and by a fantastic extended guitar solo that is pure class throughout. Just as the song feels like it's coming to a close there's one last twist; a final hard hitting ninety second blast of pure adrenaline just in case anyone forgot what the rest of the album was like.
Having your brain smashed to pieces has never felt so good!
The album Peace In Our Time will be available from the usual outlets from 7th April, released via PHD. You can pre-order it from Amazon here.
More Krysthla info at www.krysthla.co.uk
Here's Make Disciples Of The Nations...
(Published 10/03/2017)
