SYRACH

A Dark Burial

Napalm
rating icon 5 / 10

Track listing:

01. Curse the Souls
02. The River's Rage
03. A Dark Burial
04. A Mourner's Kiss
05. In Darkness I Sleep
06. Ouroboros


Norwegian grim-faces SYRACH purport to be doom metal, and in the broadest sense, that's a true statement. They're slow, to the point of being ponderous, and one glimpse at the song titles above will tell you how overwrought with bleakness and despair they are at the dour, obsidian misery of it all. But what they sound like most of the time is a death metal band in a slow part of a song — their vocals are uniformly growled, like a bored Johnny Hedlund of UNLEASHED phoning it in, and the riffing on songs like "The River's Rage" isn't too far removed from, say, an AMON AMARTH Viking ode on Xanax.

The problem with SYRACH is that they deliver these stripped-down dirges with so little inflection, adornment, or emotion, that it quickly gets tedious. There's nothing memorable about the vocals, the riffs, or the arrangements, and the delivery is impassive and detached, leaving little impression at all once its turgid time is up. The production is flat and listless, failing to even provide sheer sonic volume or purity of tone. Even when the songs vary in tempo, as on "A Mourner's Kiss", there's no sense of urgency or excitement brought on by the uptick in speed — it's just as boring and threadbare at a midpaced march as at a crawl.

There's a difference between doom and dull, and SYRACH hasn't figured it out yet. Things progress so painfully that by the time we hit the first moment of inspiration, the beginning of "A Dark Burial", the listener has been beaten into numbness by the previous two long, staggering songs of useless apathy. And even this one's not that great, though by this record's standards it's a masterpiece. There are a few other glimmers of brilliance — the guitar solo at the 8-9-minute mark of "A Mourner's Kiss" is nice, for one — but they're too scattered and too few to make anyone but the most forgiving doom-becloaked ghoul care.

Frustratingly bland and ultimately unnecessary.

Author:
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).