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Band: Hyperion
Album: Seraphical Euphony
Release date: 6 February 2016
Label: Black Lion Productions
Tracklist:
01. Remnants Of The Fallen
02. Novus Ordo Seclorum
03. Flagellum Dei
04. Seraphical Euphony
05. Moral Evasion
06. Primal Cosmic Ascendancy
07. Zephyr Of Grace
08. Empyrean Yearning
09. Blood Of The Ancients
Seraphical Euphony is the debut album for the Swedish metallers Hyperion and Black Lion Productions had quite a lucky hand to pick up into their roster this band. The guys recorded this album in the period between 2013 and 2015 in the Scarecrow Recordings, Forlorn Halls Studios and on various private locations in Stockholm. Hyperion is a six piece band who play very fast, technical, melodic and atmospheric kind of black metal.
The album opens with two minutes long dark introduction named "Remnants Of The Fallen", but the real journey through those extreme and technically elaborate melodies of all three six stringers begins with "Novus Ordo Seclorum". The band plays constantly good throughout the whole album. The guitar sound is just perfect, it's somehow natural, colourful and organic; that's also why they use three guitars that offer to the listener a very complete sound of all those riffs, tremolos and sudden attacks of syncopation. I believe that the guitar sound is pretty much real and it's not some kind of a computerized magic. Beside all those fantastic guitar leads, I love rhythmical line of the third guitar and its sound colour, because it nicely fits together with aggressive shrieking vocals, and it gives to it kind of an additional depth and well controled anger. At the same time it also connects the rhythmic line into one integrity. Bass guitar is a bit too silent, except for some tiny breaks when there's heard that flabby fat tone. The listener must pay a lot of attention to bass lines, mostly because primarly it just follows double bass drums. As well the drums are not playing the main role in those technical and melodic structures, but I find it more like some kind of a hard iron support of this living organism called Hyperion. I miss some more anger and a couple of nice blast beasts wouldn't hurt either, but in this kind of music you won't hear it so often.
Technically Hyperion are closer to the traditional melodic death metal than to real black metal, and it's good that they know how to add a certain dose of atmosphere into the whole thing, thus also hide away some minor things that could bother me otherwise. I love very much the job done by keyboards and as well some acoustic parts really nicely blend into the whole picture. It's clear that fans of true black metal won't find that much for their appeasement, the only track that gets close to that is also my favorite one - "Primal Cosmic Ascendancy". This more than 52 minutes long album ends with an almost epic eight minutes long adventure named "Blood Of The Ancients".
Hyperion are a young band and they have still a lot in front of them. I hope that they will be able to get rid of some standard cliché's of the genre. The perfection of sound and all those well played riffs most of the times are not enough to create your own image and character that could became in the future praised and cherished by the worldwide extreme metal scene. On the other hand I believe that Hyperion can do it, because musicians like they are, are most certainly able to reach the heights. Seraphical Euphony is after all one highly recommended album for all lovers of extreme metal and you should find in your collection a proper place for it.
Review written by: Imago Mortis
Rating: 7,5/10
Disclaimer: This is a guest review and it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the Terra Relicta staff.
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