Kyy - Beyond Flesh - Beyond Matter - Beyond Death

By Justin C. Kyy's first full-length, Beyond Flesh - Beyond Matter - Beyond Death, features songs that mostly stick in the 4-minute range. They get in, rock hard, and get out. The band mostly eschews waves of tremolos and blast beats (although don't worry--they're there), for a thrashier, more traditional-sounding version of black metal.

By Justin C.

Artwork by Kyy

Kyy's first full-length, Beyond Flesh - Beyond Matter - Beyond Death, features songs that mostly stick in the 4-minute range. They get in, rock hard, and get out. The band mostly eschews waves of tremolos and blast beats (although don't worry--they're there), for a thrashier, more traditional-sounding version of black metal. A lot of the riffs are straightforward and catchy, especially like the fist-pumper that starts out "Bloodline of Edom." Don't mistake "straightforward" for simple or boring, though. These songs may be short, but they're also restless in a way, with plenty of variety in tempo and fury, often making them feel like mini-epics.

And speaking of variety, the vocal performance is a tour-de-force. There are higher shrieks that are more typical black metal fare, mixed in with lower growls, occult-sounding chanting (in "Legio Serpenti," for example), and a sound I can only describe as paying homage to throat-singing in the aforementioned "Bloodline of Edom." The intro to "In Eternal Desire to End" has what sounds like a very, very pissed-off wraith, and "Panta Rei" has what I'm going to dub "speed-screeching," as if there just weren't enough time for the vocalist to spew all his bile in the time allotted. There's even what some people in the more rural areas of the U.S. would call plain, old-fashioned hollerin'. Maybe we have a Finnish reader that can translate that for us, but either way, it's a good time.

Beyond Flesh - Beyond Matter - Beyond Death is a great blast of blackishness that sounds rooted in older metal but still fresh, and as I've hinted, the vocals make it worth the price of admission alone. If it got lost in the end-of-year rush for you, go check it out now.