### Yyrkoon: Dying sun

#### 07/12/10 || InquisitorGeneralis

Before they achieved absolute dominator status deluxe with 2004’s incredible ‘Occult Medicine’ and it’s Chtulu-fucking-awesome follow-up ‘Unhealthy Opera’ Yyrkoon dabbled in the experimental and slightly-progressive…just like Daemonomania experimented a bit in college before realizing that he liked the ladies. Becoz I love Yyrkoon’s last two albums it pains me to admit that “Dying Sun” kind of sucks in comparison. Taken on its own though it is not bad and there are some section that kick serious as and show the potential that would manifest itself on the their later Lovecraft-inspired duo.

So what we have hear is mostly death and thrash metal mixed some proggy elements. There certainly are some dominating songs on here. “The clans” has an almost Iron Maiden meets Death feel to it but the clean vocal sections are no good. The solid riffs, breakdown, and solo in the middle help make up for them though. Even with all of the cheeseball shit on here I can not deny that the band is fucking tight. “Crystal light” is another up-tempo piece that shows that the band can tear shit up. Laurent Harrouart is an amazing drummer and I am shocked that someone else has not picked his ass up while Yyrkoon sits dormant. I think the big difference here is that front man and creative force Stéphane Souteryand only sings on “Dying Sun” which gives him time to try and sing for real. The Devil makes good use of idle hands and vocals cords my friend. The extended clean sections on “Screamer” really push my tolerance for power-style vocals. Again, the band comes to the rescue. On later records he plays guitar and sings which only allows him to growl, and growl well he certainly does.

Holy shit though, the instrumentals “Dying sun” and “Idols are burning” soo fucken bad it’s hilarious. They sound like the music you would hear playing as you wait in line for a boardwalk haunted house. Really, these songs are like the soundtrack to an Ed Wood movie. None of the real songs on here completely suck, but several would kick a lot more ass if they dropped the keyboards. “Stolen souls” is the prime example of this: it has great riffs and an interesting structures but the background keyboard shit needs to go along with the terrible clean singing. I must admit though, at the three minute mark the band unleashes an awesome solo section. That is the way things go on “Dying Sun”: bits of serious cheese being offset by melodic death asswhuppin’ over and over again. The band really dominates on here and the music (minus the keyboards) is fucken awesome.

If you have never heard Yyrkoon before don’t fucken start with this! Go get “Occult medicine” first. I can appreciate this record, even it’s massively cheesy moments with clean vocals and keyboards because I know that Yyrkoon dropped all that shit and entered the awesome zone later on. However, if you enjoy meaty chunks power and progressive in your death metal stew maybe this is for you.

- Information
- Released: 2002
- Label: Anvil
- Website: www.yyrkoon.net
- Band
- Stéphane Souteryand: vocals
- François Falempin: guitar
- Geoffrey Gautier: guitar
- Voctproen Vilchez: bass
- Laurent Harrouart: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Idols are Burning
- 02. Crystal Light
- 03. Flight of the Titan
- 04. Tha Clans
- 05. Thrash ‘em All
- 06. Gods of Silver
- 07. Stolen Souls
- 08. Screamer
- 09. Back to the Cave
- 10. Dying Sun