Illyria is here to tear and also melt your face off in your latest album, Wanderlust. This eight-track behemoth is as ambient as it is brutal as it possesses a pervasive sense of dread woven into the very fabric of the metal.
Opener “Armagedda” sets the mood like a prologue with its immersive soundscape and plucking guitar chords and ethereal vocals echoing to round up the mysterious aspects.
“Pragma,” only a few tracks away from the opener, is a relentless onslaught of machine-gun riffs and genre-bending vocal acrobatics, shifting from chilling screams, and hoarse growls to soaring cleans and passionate singing over relaxing harmonies and anthemic instrumentals with unnerving ease.
The gritty, glitchy, grinding guitars drive and lead to heavy, intimidating distorted vengeance in the “Aftermath” like an interlude, but with a lot of pent-up anger that only serves to heighten the tension before the next sonic onslaught.
The concluding title track itself is an epic journey, starting with a melancholic ambience rife with water-streaming sounds, church bells and glistening guitar chord strumming then building to a monstrous climax of distorted guitars and inhuman shrieks that were just breathy desolate singing before. Just when you think it’s over, it pulls you back into the desolate menacing momentum. As the bout of heavy metallic jam fades, we are brought to the same streaming sounds in a hollow, uneasy landscape, while the church bells murderously dong out till the clock strikes more than 11 minutes.
Let Illyria take you to the psychic dream that is Wanderlust on Spotify.
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Photo Credit: André Avila
Review by Naomi Joan