siLLy puPPy
RYONA HIME is an interesting new act from Todesfelde, Germany that exists in the world of brutal dissonant death metal but deftly slips in various styles of metal as well as highly melodic keyboard riffs and other extreme contrasts to the tumultuous din that pyroclastically explodes in your eardrums.
Only a couple years on and this act has released three EPs and two full-lengths with this one RITVŌS HRAPTA being the newest in 2023. This is a wild ride and has a lot of cool elements. The first track “Rapemong:Я3” starts things off with a caustic dissonant rage of atonality and ear scorching death metal extremity. The album starts off as a balls to the wall no compromise fuck it all affair then slowly adds subtle contrasts. Even the occasional saxophone sqawking is heard.
As the short album of under 25 minutes progresses it adds dramatic spoken word segments in the Japanese language with dark ambient backdrops while metal guitars add some form of counterpoint. By the time we get to “Mahō Shōjo Madrygore” the pummeling dissonance is balanced by ear wormy melodic keyboard runs offering a freaky contradictory plethora of sounds.
The closing “Urverlvst” is sort of a palette cleanser as it pretty much drops the aggressive brutality in exchange for a melodic non-metal opening sequence that after about two minutes morphs into a melodic death doom stomp. The track stays slow and snail-like for its near six minute run, the longest track on board however at the end it does break into brutal death metal bombast.
I love the diversity on this one without sacrificing the extreme brutality of the majority of the death metal on board. Just enough opposing forces to keep you from tuning out the incessant noisefest. The mixing and production is also worthy of mention as the artist has effectively mixed the muddy shrillness of the distortion with the calm placidity of the non metal parts. Overall i like this a lot. Have to check out more.