November 2024 has turned out to be quite the month for those who like their grooves heavy, atmospheric and Danish, not only have we been graced with an exceptionally impressive release from Copenhagen based outfit Alkymist (reviewed here) but also a release from Dying Hydra, a trio also hailing from the same city. Dying Hydra, Tejs Kyhl (drums); Lars Pontoppidan (guitar/vocals) and Patrick Fragtrup (guitar/vocals) are unusual in that they have no bassist in their line up instead preferring to bring that all important low end rumble to their grooves via clever deployment of octave pedals. The bands latest release "Strange And Beautiful Things" (Black Grain Records), the follow up to their well received debut album "Of Lowly Origin", is built around a conceptual theme that explores humanities effect on our environment, specifically our oceans, an album that finds the band tackling some very weighty issues with some seriously weighty lyrics and music.
An exotic sounding guitar motif introduces opening track "Lithification" joined by light percussion and sharded chord voicings from the second guitar, so far things are sounding quite post metallic and ambient but then that first guitar motif gradually starts to get a touch more crunchier and intense, that percussion begin to get a little bigger and heavier and that second guitar starts to add a little more bite and growl to its tones, without really noticing it we, the listeners, have been gradually moved from a place of ambience and serenity to a place of chaos and mayhem, a gloriously heavy chaos and mayhem fronted by powerful raspy and guttural vocals. Next song "Aurelia" again begins languid and post-metallic but here the move from languid post metal to heavy sludge is less gradual, and when we say heavy sludge we are not talking brutal, there is a refined and complex element to Dying Hydra's heaviness that makes it seem doubly strange that the word "progressive" is not bandied about more when discussing their music. Third track "Abyssal Clocks" is an atmosphere drenched behemoth that sees the vocals shifting back and forth between impassioned gravelled howls and deep guttural growls over a constantly swelling and dissipating musical backdrop while "Grasping Stone" is a rhythmic tour-de-force taken to another level by eastern flavoured guitar textures and a full on throaty vocal. Penultimate song "Into Existence" finds Dying Hydra pushing those elements of post-metal and prog, that have coloured each track up to this point, to the fore, musically still staying very much in the sludge arena but with much more emphasis on texture and colour. Finally we arrive at "Ancestral", the songs furious driving rhythm patterns serving as a platform for the two guitarists to trade off crunching riffs, ear catching motifs and tasteful licks beneath equally furious vocal interplay, if you find you have been holding your breath in awe right up to the last note of tis song then be safe in the knowledge that we at Desert Psychlist were doing exactly the same thing, whew!
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