### Hymir: Nyctophobia

#### 14/04/11 || Khlysty

What would happen if Papa Al Jourgensen and the boys from latter day Ministry/RevCo decided to play some good ole streamlined black metal with orchestral flourishes, peppered here and there with bits an’ pieces of death metal? I don’t know and, most probably, neither Hymir, whose debut, “Nyctophobia” (which means fear of the night, you ignoramuses, you), I decided to review.

Tell you the truth, “Nyctophobia” isn’t half-bad for what it is. The best way to describe the music is orchestral blackened death’n’roll with production tricks that nod towards some trad industrial. This means that the guitars have a hefty, crunchy sound, the keyboards are pretty upfront, the melodies are quite distinctive –albeit, not very original-, the vocals are raspy and sometimes studio-tricked, there is some blasting and tremolo-picking here and there, but generally the songs develop in a straightforward manner: verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus-verse-outro; you know the shit.

As a rule, I dislike orchestral black metal: I find it pretentious, overblown and overbearing. Thank the Dark Godz, then, that Hymir don’t go into full-length orchestral bullshit here, but try to give the songs a memorability pretty uncommon with said genre. Of course, the whole mix of styles –black, death, industrial, whathaveyou- doesn’t really gels into something really workable. Plus, the band’s tendency of making the songs at least two minutes longer than they actually should be, makes them, after a point pretty tiring, since the linear development leads to redundancy, or, even worse, to parts that seem totally lacking coherence (like, “hey, after this chugga-chugga part, let’s add this piano-only bridge, then go to blasting, ‘cause, like, it’s cool”).

Look, as I said before, Hymir’s “Nyctophobia” is not bad for what it is. The fact that it doesn’t work for me, shouldn’t deter anyone interested in such music to, at least, sample the record and see what one shall see. Me, I like my metal more unsafe than what I’ve heard here…

- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Self-financed
- Website: Hymir MySpace
- Band
- Pablo de Groot: vocals, rhythm guitar
- Kay van Kalsbeek: lead guitar
- Tom Gorissen: piano, keyboards
- Alexander Leune: bass
- Per Hoogendoorn: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Nightmarish illumination
- 02. Let the world be cold
- 03. Poltergeist
- 04. Fractal deliberation
- 05. Reminiscence
- 06. And sorrow turned in death pt.I
- 07. And sorrow turned in death pt.II
- 08. Soul monolith
- 09. What the moon reveals
- 10. Nyctophobia