''I reflect in Solitude...''
Lycus is a funeral doom band hailing from Sacramento, California. They were formed in 2008, and after several months of the formation of the band, with very limited live perfomances, a self-released demo and numerous lineup changes the band were forced to split-up due to the wavering of the bands lineup. After relocating to San Francisco, Jackson and Deschryver, the founding members reunited with a new lineup and finally released this demo. And thus brings us to this review...
The demo starts out with the track 'Resonance in Aether', this track is just pure gold because of its intro with dissonance guitar-riffs and choir-vocals and when finally the real vocals comes in with those monstrous growls that brings chills down your spine. The vocals really compliment the guitar riffs, and also works well together with the drums. The bass is also quite audible, soothing to the ears and plays quite pensive riffs... this especially can be heard on the intro to the track 'Among the Ruins', it also just pounds the living shit out of the open string riffs during the midsections of all the songs which is really nice if you're listening to this on a big stereo like I do. The lyrics are also quite good, giving that you read the lyrics while you listen to the music, they give you a sense of doubt and that the world is going to end pretty soon... or that has already ended and these guys are the only ones left to play their sorrowful funeral doom to the mass graves of humanity...
The production is also some worthy of mentioning, its relatively clean, not giving the demo a 'poppy' sound but instead intensifying the record by adding a little muddiness to the mix. Greg Wilkinson who were responsible for the recording of the Asunder and Graves at Sea split (which is one of the best splits I ever heard) and mixing the Necrot demo and Atriarch's Forever the End really did a great job on here... I hope he comes back and mixes the full-length Lycus has planning to record and release soon enough.
Demo MMXI is easily one of the best demos 2011 had to offer.. even for the genre of funeral doom it was the best of that year! So yeah... not much more to be said than... fuckin' listen to it.
The demo starts out with the track 'Resonance in Aether', this track is just pure gold because of its intro with dissonance guitar-riffs and choir-vocals and when finally the real vocals comes in with those monstrous growls that brings chills down your spine. The vocals really compliment the guitar riffs, and also works well together with the drums. The bass is also quite audible, soothing to the ears and plays quite pensive riffs... this especially can be heard on the intro to the track 'Among the Ruins', it also just pounds the living shit out of the open string riffs during the midsections of all the songs which is really nice if you're listening to this on a big stereo like I do. The lyrics are also quite good, giving that you read the lyrics while you listen to the music, they give you a sense of doubt and that the world is going to end pretty soon... or that has already ended and these guys are the only ones left to play their sorrowful funeral doom to the mass graves of humanity...
The production is also some worthy of mentioning, its relatively clean, not giving the demo a 'poppy' sound but instead intensifying the record by adding a little muddiness to the mix. Greg Wilkinson who were responsible for the recording of the Asunder and Graves at Sea split (which is one of the best splits I ever heard) and mixing the Necrot demo and Atriarch's Forever the End really did a great job on here... I hope he comes back and mixes the full-length Lycus has planning to record and release soon enough.
Demo MMXI is easily one of the best demos 2011 had to offer.. even for the genre of funeral doom it was the best of that year! So yeah... not much more to be said than... fuckin' listen to it.
Rating
