Belgium like all other European nations has birthed its fair share of atmospheric black metal over the past decade or so, when the genre became particularly popular. But like all metal genres, for every gem of audible beauty there are a plethora of mediocre bands, or bands who seem promising and later appear boring.
I am hereby referring to Nyrak, who on their second release, Devourer of All, start off with some belting blast beats and impressive strings, but as the record progresses, the listener finds it hard to navigate exactly where in the album one is owing to the ever deepening body of the tunes.
Musicianship wise, this is a very impressive ensemble of players who are well equipped to make decent metal music, it’s the execution that made me feel bored with the record by the halfway mark.
Everything you’d expect from a decent atmospheric band is here and I applaud them on that level, it just feels as if this band tried a bit too hard to make a decent record and came up with something forgettable.
That really is the best term I can find for this album: forgettable. I do feel bad saying I did not enjoy this piece as I can see potential in Nyrak from their musical prowess, but this is one album that falls short of grabbing the audience’s attention long enough to make spines tingle and open the inner psyche as black metal is capable of.
Not a complete failure but one that was executed badly with all the best of intentions.
(5/10 Demitri Levantis)
Leave a Reply